I went twice to see this movie. First on the Berlin Premiere, second time a week later. Why? Well, on premiere night I had tickets in row 7, of a huge theatre. I was hugely excited to see the new Bond (as I always have been for the past 25 some years). But hey, I had to LEAVE the theatre after 15 minutes. You simply can't watch that fast edited MTV Style movie in row 7 (!). No chance, absolutely. Okay so I went again, this time a nice seat all the way at the end of the same theatre. I could endure the MTV cuts, but not the massacre the producers did to Bond. (the director can't be held responsible, since the producers chose him and not vice versa).

In 21 previous Bond films, one could really like the British super spy. His character, his smartness, some cool one liners, and yes, Ms. Broccoli, we the audience loved the gadgets. We loved Moneypenny, Q and M. Why did you take it all away? Why? We may never know...

This Bond is just another action flick with a really mediocre storyline. For heavens sake, change the characters name, and you are not in one single moment reminded of the great super spy. Why bother then?

For the action: Filming hand held and edit MTV style does not mean action automatically! The great Frankenheimer knew that, when he filmed some of the best car chases in "Ronin", Foster probably never saw that classic....

For a reminder, since it comes up so many times in reviews on IMDb, Bond and Borne are two completely different franchises. Borne is chasing after his history, while Bond is saving the world. Just because Borne was such a huge success, don't try imitate him. Arrgh what a terrible film, it is such a shame. Regardless of what the box office says!

P.S. and then you even dare to take away the gun barrel montage in the beginning, and no more "Bond, James Bond. Are you people mental?

After the critically acclaimed and much successful 'Casino Royale' I had hopes that 'Quantum of Solace' could rival this years best movie so far: 'The Dark Knight'. Well... it doesn't even come close.

There use to be a time when Bond movies where trendsetting...

I remember when director Doug Liman some time ago said he wanted to make "Bond for a new generation" - so he dug up Jason Bourne. Several received Oscars and years later, we now have the Bond franchise mimicking the Bourne franchise instead. How ironic. If you are a Bond fan like me, and - when the endcredits roll - think to yourself that the movie you just saw had more in common with the last two Bourne-movies, than the first 21 Bond-movies, then you know there's a problem!

On paper Quantum of Solace may be a Bond movie. But many of those things that people use to associate with Bond movies are gone. Some for no obvious purpose or reason.

It wasn't enough for them to take away Moneypenny, Q, the gadgets, the humor and witticism, his "shaken, not stirred", the line "my name is Bond, James Bond." They even ditched the famous opening gunbarrel-sequence, and you won't hear the James Bond theme right until the very end (as in Casino Royale which - besides being 40 minutes longer - "felt" more like a Bond movie)

And what's up with this new style of filming and editing?

Well, they hired the editor, the stuntteam and 2nd unit director of... yes, you guessed it - the Bourne movies. So do not under any circumstance buy tickets for the first 10 rows - you will regret it. I was sitting in the 15th row at an advance fan-screening and even there I would be reaching for my seasickness-pills if I had any.

Because with this annoying new MTV-style editing (which is suppose to add "realism") known from the Bourne-movies with shaking hand-held cameras in which you have a hard time following what really is happening on screen, especially in a crowded surrounding, you will be better off sitting as far back as possible in the theatre. Luckily this style is - unlike Bourne 2 and 3 - not incorporated into every single scene in Quantum of Solace. Far from it. But it's there, and it's very annoying, in my opinion. It actually ruined much of the first two action set-pieces for me, and by then we were only 30 minutes into the movie.

Quantum of Solace is very fastpaced, like a Bourne/Bond-movie should be. We jump from location to location, actionsequence to actionsequence. It can be very confusing watching Bond on a rampage still dealing with "personal issues" (like Bourne). Bourne Ultimatum had a rooftop-chase. So does Quantum of Solace. Bourne Ultimatum had a fistfight in a small cluttered apartment filmed the way I mentioned earlier. Well, so does Quantum of Solace. How original!

It's like they took some of the best parts of the two last Bournemovies and said "let's do almost the exact same thing and add something more, like letting him fly a plane." So Bond does that, in what I think is the second-best part of the movie. The best part for me, was oddly enough not an actionsequence, but when Bond for once does some real spywork on a floating operastage accompanied by a great music score. Very Bondian.

For this, for Dennis Gassners terrific production design, for David Arnolds usual great score and for Craigs cool performance, I give it six stars.

A note to the producers of the Bond movies: Now that you played around with Bourne, can we have 007 back for Bond 23, please?

Stunt, stunt, stunt, crash. Stunt, stunt, stunt, crash. Explosion.

QUANTUM OF SOLACE, directed by Marc Foster like a speed freak on crank and edited by Matt Chesse and Richard Pearson like a chicken fight in a monkey house, makes THE BOURNE IDENTITY look like MY DINNER WITH ANDRE.

As I watched the opening car chase grind metal, and the subsequent foot chase beat streets through an Italian town during a horse race, one question kept surfacing: Did I accidentally walk into TRANSPORTER 3?

QUANTUM OF SOLACE exists only for its next popcorn chase sequence only to show off its next stunt, with editing that will maim your optic nerves. Your eyes will start hurting long before you realize there's nothing on screen worth watching.

Daniel Craig, still chiseled like a Grecian statue, still super-cool and super-cruel, is listed as playing Ian Fleming's super-spy character, James Bond.

But is it still Bond? Having recently watched two of Pierce Brosnan's outings (GOLDENEYE and DIE ANOTHER DAY), I see that Brosnan (a perfect Bond, I might add) never colored so far outside the lines of the character that he became not just unrecognizable, but indistinguishable from the morass of other taut-buttocked man-toys glutting the action hero landscape. That's the tragedy here - Craig could be Jason Statham or Clive Owen or Jet Li; the Bond franchise might have been resurrected/reimagined in CASINO ROYALE, but there is not enough "essence of Bond" left by venturing so far outside the box in QUANTUM.

There is still the suaveness, sure, but the infamous Bond gadgets? Not a trace, except maybe the soaring height of computer technology displayed by the whole MI6 organization. Aston Martin? Only a banged up version in the opening car chase. Flamboyant villain? Well, he's indeterminately Euro with designs on absolute power. Ironic banter? Nope. Quips? Nope. Sex with leading lady? Nope - instead, a glorified extra. Even the catchphrase, "Bond. James Bond" is absent. And the laughable Bond death-traps where - like the 1960s Batman - he is left to die in some contraption with a countdown that allows him just enough time to find an improbable escape with no one watching? Bond actually turns the table on this one, leaving the villain in the desert with only a can of motor oil to sustain him.

Written by the talented Paul Haggis, the Evil Plot in this Bond film is congruent with today's morally muddy politics, where a shady "green" entrepreneur, Gordon Greene (Mathieu Amalric), deals hand-in-glove with the CIA and the British government, who both admit, "if we didn't do business with villains we wouldn't be doing business at all." Of course, Greene's ultimate aim is power over others - in this case, monopolizing the water supply in Bolivia, using "environmentalism" as a cover.

For those not paying attention, there are the eye-straining fight scenes and chase scenes to keep you amused: car chase, boat chase, plane chase, moped chase, foot chase across rooftops (where've I seen that before? Oh yeah - the last Bond film!), wholesale destruction following in the wake of Bond and his pursuers.

Meanwhile, that wrinkled old man in charge of MI6, Judi Dench, goes swishing about doubting Bond's trust because he is mooning over a chick who got murdered in the last film. So Bond goes rogue long enough to plonk a newbie bimbo by the name of Fields, then finds her dead like the chick in GOLDFINGER, covered in oil instead of gold. (Black gold?, heh heh--Waitaminute! Even if you were dipped in crude oil like a shrimp cocktail, wouldn't it just slide off? How does it cake her body like black syrup?)

And the leading lady - in these films, termed Bond Girl - Olga Kurylenko, doesn't even schtupp Bond! Isn't that the POINT of being a Bond Girl?! Detached to the point of boring, Kurylenko's ice queen character is ironic, playing some kind of double-agent with a burn scar on her back that I couldn't stop looking at, tooling about a searing desertscape, trapped in a hotel fire - yet generating not one iota of heat. Let's face it: Bond's universe is no place for a woman too independent. Our primal instincts felt the old magic when dippy Fields bantered with Bond, but that misogynistic fun was not to last. Excuse the pun, but - 18 million cracks, my arse!

Why does everyone moan about the title? Does anyone know what Quantum means outside of physicists and Scott Bakula fans? (From IMDb:) According to Henry Chancellor in his book James Bond - The Man and His World, "Quantum of Solace" relates to the necessary iota of emotion that is needed between lovers.

Now tenuously link this with Bond seeking revenge for his last bébé and the villainous organization named Quantum. Thank the junkets we don't have to view the film for this info, which takes us from Haiti, to Italy, Bolivia, Austria, London, Russia, and leaves us north of Eye-Strain.

QUANTUM opens with the good ole sexploitation gimmick of sand dunes as naked women, Alicia Keys and John White singing, Another Way to Die; closes with the gun barrel motif and classic Bond theme music.

Just like the last film, Bond's healing abilities are like Wolverine: every little face cut - healed by the next scene. In CASINO ROYALE, he plonked Vesper Lynn mere days after his mandacious torture - can the franchise heal itself as quickly as Wolverine Bond's ballsac?

Quantum of Solace is the follow-up to the electrifying reboot of the 007 franchise, Casino Royale. By the end of that film, I have to say, I was ecstatic about the direction the Bond films were heading. If you haven't seen it, Casino Royale told what was basically a James Bond origin story. It showed how Bond became the legend we see today, and by the film's end, it seemed as though Bond was back. It gave the impression that the next film would show 007 in all his classic glory, with action, gadgets, exotic locations, and spy thrills. Instead, Quantum of Solace turns out to be a hollow, depressing exercise in new age "gritty" action movies.

I won't bother with the story of Quantum of Solace because frankly, I didn't understand it. What I do know is that the interesting, over-the-top villains and their diabolical schemes are long gone from this Bond flick. Replaced instead with bland, confusing political espionage, and a completely forgettable bad guy (And I mean FORGETTABLE. The only thing I can remember about him was that he wore a suit), Quantum of Solace ditches the traditional Bond formula in favor of "realism". Unfortunately, realism doesn't translate to quality.

Even accounting for the incomprehensible plot and forgettable characters, there is still something in Quantum of Solace to, at the very least, get excited about. That thing would be the action. I remember seeing the trailer and being absolutely giddy. "A classic Aston Martin car chase, a speedboat set-piece, a breathtaking motorbike stunt, and a hand-to-hand fight, Bond is back baby!". In the actual film, these shots are undeniably great, but the big catch is that all (yes, all) of the action from the trailer takes place during the opening scene of the film. The film's best stunts, set-pieces, and moments are stuffed into one five-minute sequence at the very start of the movie, leaving the rest of the film to sit flat as a board until the equally underwhelming climax.

Quantum of Solace is not a Bond film. The fun typically associated with James Bond is nowhere to be found, and the bookend action scenes are certainly not enough to overcome this. Now, Bond can be realistic; I think Casino Royale and even Skyfall did a great job of putting Bond in a realistic setting. The difference is that those films retained the elements that make the James Bond franchise great. Quantum of Solace is embarrassed by the classic Bond films, ditching anything fun and anything over- the-top in favor of "gritty realism". The result is a completely joyless endeavor, and one of the worst Bond movies of them all.

30/100

I don't know how to explain it, but it kept me hooked more than Casino Royale. More action and more suspense. The fact that everyone is doubting everyone makes it more interesting. Looking forward for the next one!

i mean it from the title of my review that this is just a action film like Steven segal do it, where was James bond the character we all know.

Daniel Craig?is this guy even a bond? no never he lacks everything to be bond what was he doing in casino royale & in this film he doubles it. killing people without a reason,i am so sorry but please no offense to Daniel Craig fans but this movie is junk & slap to James bond fans.

from start to end we see only action & Daniel Craig making weird faces like he is suffering from constipation.you people call that acting oh boy he don't say the bond lines & no gadgets but you got to be charming like brosnan did in his films.

this is the story about bond going after oil & evil organization quantum controlled by Dominique green..

i have casino royale & Qos on DVD but i watch it only as action film.

good by to good old James bond this franchise is ruined.thanks to Barbra broccoli & Daniel Craig.

my rating is 1/10 worst bond movie .watch it only as action film

It only gets a "4" because Craig is so good. But really, just one chase scene after another? Perhaps "Run Rabbit Run" would have been more appropriate, only he's deadly. There is little of the panache of many of the previous Bonds. No regulars, except "M", which stands for muddled... never knowing whether to praise him or have him killed. No Q No Moneypenny No sex

No interest.

Just Jason Bond... action hero... In fact a Marvel of one. I've seen so much of this tripe of fast car, fast boat, fast plane, fast foot chases that I'm bored with it. Sure, it's well done (better than the almost non existent dialogue) but it's boring. Nice scenery.

Too bad. could have been good, I think, with a screenwriter.

I am probably not exactly the target audience for "Quantum of Solace". After all, my biggest complaint about the James Bond series is that over the years the films have become more and more and more stunt-oriented (which means less and less plot-driven). While the series has always had its stunts, my favorite films are the earlier, less stunt-intensive ones. The latest batch from Daniel Craig have turned the uber-stunt craze of the films into high gear--though I did really enjoy "Casino Royale". I can easily understand why he suffered so many injuries during the filming of "Quantum of SOlace"--the stunts are insane. The best of Craig's three Bond films was the first ("Casino Royale")--the one with the least dramatic stunts and most plot. Perhaps this should tell the studio something. They might save a few dollars and make better films if they considered this.

So is there much plot beyond all the action? Well, not really...or at least not much. An organization named 'QUANTUM' plans on cornering the market on oil...or water. And, like SPECTRE, they are a multinational organization dedicated to destabilizing nations and behind the scenes control of the world. Bond doesn't like them and spends the film chasing them. That's really all there is to it.

I think of this film like kids who get underwear for Christmas. Their hearts are set for the big day and what did Santa bring? A bike, a new game system or a football? Nope...underwear! That is what it was like having "Quantum of Solace" following the wonderful Bond film "Casino Royale"!! Too many dumb stunts, too many disconnected scenes, too little plot and practically no chance for James Craig to act, as he's always running, shooting and avoiding being shot!! A huge disappointment. And, by the way, the opening song sucked! $200,000,000 for all that?!

UPDATE: After sending in this review to IMDb, I had to add one more thing. At the end of the film, Bond has captured the guy responsible for EVERYTHING and lets him go to a possible death or not! What the $%** was that?! Who thought this was an appropriate way to end the film?!

There had been some very Luke warm reviews of QOS when it was released last week . Perhaps one of the reasons being that CASINO ROYALE was so good that anything else after it would disappoint . So I popped in to the cinema to make up my own mind

Most of the best aspects remain from CASINO ROYALE . Daneil Craig if not the best Bond ever is certainly the best actor to have played him and his interaction with Judi Dench's M has plenty of on screen chemistry . Mathieu Amalric's villain Dominic Greene follows in the tradition of the Craig era Bond baddies in that he's not a megalomaniac sitting in a bunker trying to destroy the world , just a very greedy man wanting to make lots of money and killing anyone in stands in the way of his corporation . One can't help thinking that maybe a little more screen time could have been dedicated to character interaction

There are a few problems . As David Mahmet once said " You believe anything in film if you don't have reason to disbelieve it " so little bits like characters being able to see in an underground cave devoid of any light are something you may forgive down to cinematic conventions . There's also an assassin who looks like Rowan Atkinson in THE BLACK ADDER complete with an identical hairstyle ! I also wished the producers had a little more courage in keeping Greene as a self appointed self righteous environmentalist guardian right up to the end . If you've seen THE EIGER SANCTION you'll know where the screenwriters got Greene's fate from

Minor flaws that you can forgive . What is impossible to forgive however is some quite atrocious editing in the action scenes where everything is so " blink and you'll miss it " What makes it even worse is that director Marc Forster has some great visual ideas , especially a shoot out in a restaurant where the only sound heard on screen is the non diegetic sound of an opera but all this is bloody ruined by subliminal editing where shot lengths are micro seconds ! You'll have to see the movie to find out how terrible this looks . In fact a large per centage of the movie feels like it ended up on the cutting room floor

There's two ways of looking at this . One is the positive opinion in that QOS is infinitely better than some of the crap we saw under the Bond banner in the 70s and 80s , perhaps even better than some of the lesser Brosnan films . That is the correct opinion . The negative opinion is that QOS is ultimately disappointing in many ways and should have been better . Unfortunately that is also the correct opinion

After being extremely disappointed with 'Casino Royale' (with an ordinary poker game as its primary action sequence), I was happy to see that the producers of Quantum of Solace decided to bring back 'Bond' to its action-packed roots. I am still trying to get used to Daniel Craig as Bond however. He's about the opposite of the urbane, sophisticated and witty character initially developed by the greatest Bond of them all, Sean Connery. Daniel Craig is closer to a Steve McQueen type but unable to capture McQueen's true 'bad boy' persona. Craig's interest in women is minimal (he spends a very short time in bed in Quantum of Solace). In this new version of Bond, he's a trained killer who rarely shows emotion (there is a brief scene where he cradles the head of an associate who's been shot) but for the most part, Craig's Bond is as cold and ruthless as the villains he's trying to hunt down. While not very handsome, Craig is in extremely good shape and handles all the action sequences with gusto.

There are plenty of excellent action sequences in Quantum of Solace which will keep you entertained. These sequences run the gamut from car, boat and plane chases to a dazzlingly choreographed face off between Bond and the primary villain's henchmen at an opera house.

Olga Kurylenko as Camille is a more proactive 'Bond girl' than usual. She seeks to take revenge on General Medrano (Quantum's #2 villain) who killed her family members when she was a child. Bond 'rescues' her when she finds herself alone on boat with the General and his goons. Later she's angry with Bond for 'rescuing' her, upsetting her plans to kill Medrano on the boat (it's never made clear how Camille could kill Medrano without getting killed herself—and also how would she have been able to kill him as it did not appear she was carrying a weapon).

Dominic Greene is the primary villain played by Mathieu Amalric. He's a sleazy businessman masquerading as an environmental crusader. Bond discovers that instead of trying to aid the local populace, he's dammed off all their water causing a drought. At the end of the film, Bond captures Greene and leaves him in the desert with a can of (what looks like) draino (presumably which he can use to commit suicide). I was expecting something more dramatic such as Bond destroying the dam and having the water cascade into the drought stricken area, replenishing the water supply and killing Greene in the process.

Judi Dench is excellent as usual as "M" but I still miss the wonderful gadgets Bond uses to defeat his opponents. The signature 007 music comes on at the end but why not use it at the beginning too? In a nod to be relevant to today, the opening theme song unfortunately is greatly influenced by rap music. It's basically a tuneless song and detracts from the film's opening.

For now, the James Bond franchise appears to be successfully emulating the non-stop action stunts of the Jason Bourne series. But the producers should be forewarned: start giving Bond more of a personality or the Bond fan base will start clamoring for Daniel Craig's replacement.

I was not fond of either TWINE, DAD or Casino Royale so I went to see QOS with some trepidation.

I had some slight hope that we might get something with a Fleming feel as Craig apparently " became" Bond at the end of CR. No such luck, QOS is a generic action movie with nothing memorable about it.

There is a great deal of action but its all somewhat derivative of Bourne.I didn't feel there was any originality in the action or the script.

There is surprising little romance either, although for those females that find Craig deeply unattractive ( like me) that is perhaps not so surprising.

Olga Kurenyo is competent but not very distinctive and Gemma Arterton steals the movie..unfortunately she isn't around for long.

Dame Judi Dench is very good. Title song is excruciating and the score is mixed..at times good at others too high tech and tinny.

Villain is pretty weak and scarcely a formidable enough opponent for 007.

not impressed

I've bought this on DVD and I'm glad I have. The only reason I'm glad is that I can watch it again and again and see if I can find the plot anywhere. Watched it twice so far and still can't work out whats going on. The credits rolled and I thought: "Is that it?" 97 minutes were on the clock of the DVD Player.

This is a continuation of Casino Royale and I'm not sure how to describe the film. It starts in Italy, goes to Haiti and then Bolivia. Some bloke is after oil or water? I'm still confused. If you like action without dialogue, you got it. I'm sure the total script wouldn't cover two sides of A4 paper.

The title song, I'm sorry to say, has to be one of the worst and has no relation to the film or a mood connection either.

This isn't the best and not the worst. Please lets have something better next time, keep it to the 2 hour mark and please lets have a plot and dialogue.

The movie starts with an 'action' sequence where Bond is being chased through the mountains in some fancy car... or maybe he's chasing someone through the mountains... or maybe he's driving down to Brighton for an afternoon at the beach and some other people are chasing each other through the mountains... or... who knows? They obviously spent a ton of cash on this sequence but then they cut it together in three-frame chunks so the audience have no idea what the heck is going on.

After this there's a brief discussion which seems to assume that the viewer just watched Casino Royale and can therefore remember exactly what happened in that movie (perhaps the fact that I can barely remember anything about it whereas I remember at least the rough plots of pretty much every other Bond movie I've seen should have been warning enough to me).

Then Bond chases someone around town... or maybe someone chases him... or maybe Bond goes for a nice cup of tea as he watches a horse race while two other guys chase each other around town; again it's impossible to tell because of the appalling editing.

Then he flies to... well, I don't know -- or really care -- because at this point we turned off the DVD.

Never once in my life have I failed to watch a Bond movie to the end, until now... and, let's face it, there have been plenty of stinkers. But this is just garbage, and if it's the future of the Bond franchise, it's rushing towards a well-deserved death; the concept of a more realistic Bond wasn't a bad one, but not when you give $100,000,000 to a couple of film school students (OK, maybe the editor and director do have some track record -- I don't even care enough to look them up on IMDb -- but it certainly looks like the kind of movie that bad film school students dream about making).

Seriously, avoid this movie at all costs; it's the worst 'action movie' I've seen in years.

*Contains Spoilers*

The plot wasn't a confusing one but I really didn't care about it that and lost so much interest in Quantum of Solace that at times I wasn't too sure what was going on. Despite being widely acclaimed, the same happened for me with Casino Royale. It got to the point where in some cases I did know who characters were, and when I did, I neither liked or disliked them.

I tried to like Daniel Craig, I really tried, but he is an awful James Bond. Critically he has been well received as Bond but every car chase, ever fight, ever action scene I found myself wanting Craig to end up being the one thrown off a building.

He doesn't have any the charm or charisma that James Bond should have and everything about him is far too serious; the scene in the hotel with Fields pretty much sums up everything that is wrong with Craig's Bond. Fields turns up to arrest Bond if he goes rogue but ends up in bed with him, this is nothing out of the ordinary except it just happens; there is no charm from Bond, no cringe worthy lines, no character interaction. It just happens.

Bond going rogue is nothing new but throughout the entire film he actually felt like the bad guy and I actually ended up liking Greene far more. James Bond shooting and killing two perfectly innocent Bolivian policemen is not the James Bond we have come to love over the years, rogue or not, it's not an excuse. James Bond is actually the most unlikeable characters in this film.

Although I think there was meant to be, there is no Bond girl in Quantum of Solace. Olga Kurylenko played the part well but like everybody else in this film, it wouldn't have made any difference if she wasn't in it.

Gone are the totally over the top action scenes which have been replaced with far fetched chases and gun fights that are trying too hard to come across as realistic. Gone is any humour, gone is everything that I loved about James Bond.

I think this is the core problem with Craig and the past two Bond films, and perhaps it's not Craig's fault, but Bond is trying to become realistic. It fails on every level.

There are so many things wrong with Quantum of Solace, most not Craig's fault but it isn't helped by my dislike for him as James Bond.

I'll watch pretty much any film through to the end if I've started watching it, and Quantum of Solace was no different but for a good part of it I just wanted it to end. From the awful song at the introduction to the ending credits I don't think I enjoyed it at any point and I wanted the good part of a couple of hours back.

I had put off watching this for a while as I'd heard negative things about it and after the excellent "Casino Royale" I didn't want to see Bond in a poor film. When I had an opportunity to borrow a copy of the film I decided I'd put off viewing it long enough. At first I wasn't too impressed, the car chase opening was good enough but nothing we hadn't seen before and the title song was a contender for the worst opening song to date.

Set just after the end of "Casino Royale" Bond is seeking revenge for death of Vesper, he has captured Mr White and is about to interrogate him. Before he can get started Mr White says he is part of a secretive organisation with people placed everywhere... a second later one of M's bodyguards shoots her and facilitates White's escape. Bond gives chase but fails to catch him. He ends up following a lead that takes him to Haiti, Austria and finally Bolivia. The lead he is following is supposed environmental campaigner Dominic Greene during this pursuit he meets the main "Bond girl" Camille, a member of Greene's organisation who appears to have crossed him. As Bond gets closer to Greene he is ordered to stand down; second "Bond girl" Fields is dispatched to bring him home and the CIA are trying to kill him because they think Greene has found oil in Bolivia.

The film wasn't as bad as I'd feared but it was a bit of a mess; we were given little information about the sinister organisation apart from its name: Quantum, presumably this was to partly justify the film's title. I won't spoil Greene's goal here but will say it didn't exactly seem the sort of thing a Bond villain would usually be up to. Thankfully the acting was good, Daniel Craig is great in the role and could go on to take Sean Connery's title of "Best Bond" in time, Olga Kurylenko did well enough as Camille and Gemma Arterton was sadly underused as Fields.

Overall it was a decent action film but a sub-par as a Bond film, I hope the next film has more plot to it, this one felt like the second unit director was in charge of procedures as the film lurched from one action scene to the next with little time in between to explain what is happening and why.

How in God's name could they screw this Bond movie up so badly? How???

The director, Marc Forster, has done some good movies before. Was this one just "out of his league" due to all the heavy action sequences? The action sequences all SUCK, every one of them. Not only are they poorly cut together, there's even one that is cut together with an opera on a theatre stage. Not a bad idea, necessarily, but it doesn't work here. Just awful. Even the climax of the movie, the last action sequence, is utterly horrible... a massive building/structure in the middle of a desert, that inexplicably is able to have successive explosions to enhance the finale. Pulllleeease.

The writers, one being Paul Haggis, has written some excellent stuff. So how could this script be so poor? A storyline that not only is convoluted, but lacks story logic. Oh, sure, a lot of studio movies lack story logic or have horrible plot lines, but c'mon, this is inexcusable for a Bond film.

I like Craig as Bond (thus this movie gets 2 stars instead of the lowest rating), but he does play it as a serious (and some here say brooding) Bond. There are no humorous moments and no "charmingly rogue-ish" side to this Bond. It is a film devoid of any humor, and that's a shame.

Perhaps that's because he's after the people responsible for the death of someone close to him (or that he loved). But this is all backstory, we don't see him being with whoever he supposedly cared about before she was killed. And that's indicative of the whole movie: None of the characters have ANY character development, so we don't care about any of them. They can live or die (and most die), but who cares? The writers really failed here with this script.

The producers of this movie? They should all be forbidden from future outings of Bond films, and Ms. Broccoli should license this franchise to producers who know how to make a good movie with a compelling story. Quit phoning this in, Ms. Broccoli. You're doing a serious disservice to this franchise with "Quantum."

Quantum of Solace was obviously made for Bolivians only, because they are the only ones who are going to care about its plot - which involves a villain Dominic Greene trying to corner 60% of Bolivia's water supply so he can force the new Bolivian government to pay top dollar for it. Dull right? Yeah, absolutely right. But that's not the only problem with Quantum of Solace. Mark Foster and the producers got the main villain Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric) all wrong. The best kind of villain for a Bond movie is very eccentric (if not insane), has a sinister looking face, could be a bit of a nerd, has a black sense of humour, does incredibly evil things that you would not expect (like dump a woman in a river of piranhas), and usually has a great master plan which he is just aching to reveal to the hero James Bond. And usually the makers of James Bond get this villain down to a tea: take Dr. No in "Dr. No," Blofeld in "You Only Live Twice" and "For Your Majesty's Secret Service," or Francisco Scaramunga in "The Man with the Golden Gun," or Renaud in "The World is not Enough" and so on. But Mathieu Amalric as Dominic Greene is just too dull, too nice and too prissy to come across as even remotely evil. As for the other bad guys, they are an embarrassment to evil people everywhere. I personally think Osama bin Laden, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, Pervez Musharraf, Islam Karimov, Omar Bashir and Robert Mugabe should file a law suit against the producers who made this film for making them look bad by putting them in the same category as Dominic Greene.

The other problem with this movie is that it is really only about chase scenes. Car chases, running, motorcycle chases, plane chases, more running... a bit monotonous and tiresome, don't you think? This movie has more chases than "Live and Let Die" and "the Man with the Golden Gun" put together and that's an achievement. But not an achievement to be proud of, because there is no room for, let's say, a much better plot, great Bond dialogue, sexy scenes with centre-fold women (in fact, the only scenes I enjoyed in this entire Bond film involved James Bond (Daniel Craig) and the sexy red head Strawberry Fields (Gemma Arterton), though I am not quite sure when they started finding each other attractive), and interactions between the villain and Bond.

Finally, I think the director got James Bond wrong. Daniel Craig's personality is so icy that his charisma evaporates; he makes Roger Moore look like Alfie. I realize that this was how Daniel Craig is supposed to play Bond and he does it very well. But at the same time, an openly cold and unsympathetic personality does not work in the context of a fun Bond film (Casino Royale was different, because it works as a serious Bond film). James Bond always had a shadow over him, but he also knew how to tuck it away when he was seducing women. We do not see that kind of Bond here and I think that is a mistake.

He's back as a combination of the Terminator and Bourne.

He doesn't need sleep.Can drink 6 gin cocktails straight down with no effect.Can jump off roofs landing on concrete or a bus top with no sprains. Fails 30 feet through a glass roof landing on scaffolding without a scratch or damage to his suit.Falls hundreds of feet from an aeroplane, but only needs the parachute for the last few feet.

And fast. He's so fast you don't see his moves. Handcuffed in an elevator with 4 presumably lethally trained agents. He's renders the lot of them unconscious & is out of the cuffs & rearmed in seconds.

Even though he credit cards are frozen, he still travels with ease. And his intuition is so advanced, he can tell where in a ferociously burning & exploding building his female chum is cowering. The jump cut editing makes all the action sequences so fast that they become chaotic & incomprehensible. Utterly, totally unbelievable visual gibberish. The makers should be ashamed. But they won't be because they have already made money.

(Spoilers) First, I've never been a big fan of the Bond franchise. I've seen most of them and would call myself a fair weather fan. The good ones are OK, take them or leave them otherwise.

But, I just caught the last one at the dollar show and was simply amazed by what it was and what it wasn't.

I remember remarking on here awhile back that it was curious that the latest Bond flick was rated better by women on IMDb than guys, considering what Bond flicks were. Well, now I understand. The latest incarnation of "Bond" bears almost no resemblance to what the original Bond recipe was all about.

Originally it was about a suave, macho lady's man (in the way feminists reviled) who used gadgets and brains to beat the other side in the cold war to save the free world. Lots of T and A.

The cold war is over. The latest one is, once you get through all the plot subterfuges and smoke screens to make you think something to affect the world is going on, is really just a bad ol multinational corporation going through all these terribly dangerous and expensive machinations to get to be the new utilities company for a relatively poor South American country. Huh? All you do is bribe the govt and collect your money. World wide attacks on top intelligence agencies not required. Of course, the producers try to give it the obligatory green twist required in Hollywood today that Bond is saving the planet somehow (here groundwater), but, really, there is just a few "secret" dams. The water is there, we saw this same "bad guy" building dams in old west movies about water rights. (The bad guy is starving us poor little honest folks downstream Mr Western hero.) Instead of a the macho free world saving Bond, we have one that is running around being loyal and trying to get revenge for one woman and save his other one (Boss lady M). Put him on a white horse and let him go charge a castle. Big Whoop.

Nothing more than a cell phone, diggy camera and internet link are used as his "edge" in gadgets and technology.

Leaving T&A as the only remaining element of the Bond franchise to keep it true to what this whole Bond thing is/was supposed to be about for its fans - and there was none. Literally. "Marley and Me" designed largely for 10 year olds had more sex and titillation than the friggen Bond film. Seriously.

This certainly had a neutered James Bond whose only goal in life was to show two women how special they were. Sex and the City fans would have been proud. Bond fans? Give it a 4 on competent action movie scenes of car chases, boat chases and fist fights to the death. The plot was ridiculous bordering on non-existent. The global threat was a joke. The Bond actor was fine as an action hero/knight on white horse for the ladies in the audience. But, he bore no resemblance to the character that made Bond, Bond.

They literally made a Bond film without anything a real fan of Bond films would call a Bond film.

The next time you owe your lady a chick flick with hero worried only about saving his lady love, call Bond, James Bond, but frankly, you'd probably enjoy a Sex in the City movie more. At least there will be a little eye candy in those.

QoS is the fastest moving, most visceral, bone-crunching, eye-wateringly stunt-laden Bond move yet made. Where CR was a roller-coaster ride with longish quieter stretches of track for contemplation, drama and character development, QoS is a roller-coaster ride with seriously reduced stretches of track and less respite. My guess is, that in response to the CR critics claiming that there is no place for character development in a Bond movie, that Bond shouldn't be too emotional, CR was too long, CR didn't have enough action or set-pieces, the producers have reacted with the shortest, punchiest, diamond-hardest staccato rap-attack they could muster. QoS is a continuous blast from beginning to end.

This is the deal – if you want protracted and deliberate plot spoon-feeding, if you can't multi-task, if you are so pussy-whipped to a sissy state that searing, pulse pounding action cinema makes you close your eyes and cry, if you want a Jane Austen costume-drama, you won't get what you want from this film. If, like Chris Tookey of The Mail, you thought that CR was romantic art-house Bond, and romantic art-house cinema is what excites you, then you're going to find this boring in comparison.

However, if you want the full-monty kick in the balls, sock in the jaw, rabbit punch to the kidneys, cinematic acid-burn to the eyeballs, gut-wrenching adrenaline rush to the synapses, you're going to have a great time.

Craig is all business here, still a revelation as 007. He's not crying any longer (much). He's out to cut a swathe through the villains and despatch and destroy, burn and blow-up anything that gets in his path, or threatens to deflect him from it. Cool, muscular, sardonic, full of subtle nuances and mannerisms that communicate so much to the audience – provided they are paying attention, that is. He has now consolidated the domination of another strata of the character – that of the trained killer on a mission. He's perfected the art of dispensing death and destruction with a compelling brutal, cavalier elegance. An absolute joy to watch.

As for the content of the film, here is a list of things that the pretenders (some of those delusional people who pretended to have seen it prior to release) got completely wrong:

Camille does not die. Correct. Anyone who said so, didn't see the film and was lying through their scum sucking teeth.

Bond does not resign at the end. (More later).

Bond has not not gone completely rogue. He is supported and sanctioned by M for most of the film: "He's my agent and I trust him."

There are some satisfyingly subtle quips and one-liners:

"Don't bleed to death."

"She's sea sick."

Mathis: "I think she has handcuffs." Bond: "I do hope so."

"We're teachers on a sabbatical. We've just won the lottery."

"Can I make a suggestion? Why don't you people find a better place to meet?"

Camille: "Your mother?" Bond: "She likes to think so."

And more.

As for Arnold's score, it's another triumph of mood, atmosphere and relevance. It pounds daringly during the action, emotionally compliments the quieter moments. The signatures drawn from the theme song are incorporated. As in CR, segments of the Bond theme itself is utilised at key moments throughout.

The title sequence (banal theme song apart) is stark and hard-hitting, incorporating teasing hints of the Bond gun barrel into it's conception.

The henchmen have little to do, but Dominic Greene is a fine, vile, villain. Oh, by the way, as far as the audience is concerned, he does die in the end. At Bond's orchestration.

Pleasingly referenced are Goldfinger (Fields coated in oil – an irony, because "there isn't any" oil). The Spy Who Loved Me (Sandor being held over the edge of a high building; the desert trek, etc).

Any critic who states that the film consists of a series of completely random action sequences must have been watching something completely different – everything has a logical place, purpose and rationale within the narrative. Plus, anyone who couldn't follow the plot, which is clearly obvious and well defined throughout, has a serious case of receptive dysphasia. My daughter, who is fourteen, had no problems. And she's blonde.

Lastly, I totally loved the interplay between Bond and Mathis. Worth the price of admission alone. The poignancy and tenderness (yes, tenderness) woven into their interaction, especially at a certain critical point, was beautifully rendered. Craig's emotion-wracked delivery of the line: "He wouldn't care," is almost heart-rending.

Finally, the ending was a real coup and this is a true spoiler:

M: "I need you back." Bond: "I never left." Cue – gun barrel. Cue - Bond theme.

The gun barrel, Craig's first classic one, is a terrific way to end the film. Think about those final lines and the inclusion of that iconic image/sequence. What does that say? For me, it absolutely pegs out a stall, lays down an agenda for the future, makes a statement that Bond is here to stay. He will return.

Personally I can't wait.

Better than CR?

No, it's different. Tone, style, content – different.

If I believed in such things, I would rate it 8/10. Perhaps more importantly I would conclude ultimately that if you are a Bond fan and a fan of thoughtful action cinema, my guess is you really can't go wrong and you'll appreciate it no end.

I can't wait to see it again. That's the truth.

Thought this was one of the worst Bond movies ever. Nothing of the magic that made many of the other 007 movies so special was to be found here. The cutting of the film is terrible. masses of 2 second sequences thrown together - for no apparent reason. (as the movie is so boring I found myself counting "one...two...) over and over again. If the action is poor it appears a cheap trick to try to "create interest" by chopping it all up and using 25 cameras to shoot that which has no interest. It just comes across as irritating and silly.

The car chase sequence in the beginning might have been good, if the filming thereof had been better. What could have been fantastic was destroyed (again) by the poor cutting of the movie. masses of sub second fractions thrown together making everyone confused as to who was being chased, who crashed etc.

The race scene in Siena was utterly stupid. The cut back and forth from the Bond action to the race action again and again was utterly unrelated and therefore pointless.

The scene in the movie were Bond discovers the underground lake and states "he is draining all the water" as an explanation to the central "badness" that the villain is about to do is utterly laughable and silly.

The end scenes with the building which is designed to explode step by step was the last straw. I have rarely seen anything more staged and unbelievable. I considered leaving a few times as the movie was so boring but then I thought that "can it get any worse"? and yes, it could and did.

We want James Bond 007 back again, lets pass this "experiment" into history and forget that it ever happened.

The previous movie Casino Royale was a good action movie, though it wasn't a Bon movie (either). The Jason Bourne formula works, but Bourne is Not Bond and this is not a Bourne movie, i don't really know how to classify other than "utterly pointless", I couldn't see any redeeming features, no plausbile plot, no interesting characters, no fantastic sceneries, awful title song, no "Bond"-ness - at all

Where do I start. First of all, I want to say that I left the theater after 30 minutes because I could no longer stay and watch the rest of the movie. The movie, in my opinion, was that bad.

What was wrong with it?

(1) Bond movies usually have a great central villain. If you look at Bond movies from the 1960's through the 1980's, and for the most part the 1990's, Bond movies had interesting villains. The villain in this movie evokes little or no emotion in that you do not care if he wins or not because he is not diabolical enough. Bond villains are usually over the top and megalomaniac. The villain in this movie is just a generic bad guy in my opinion. Totally uninteresting.

(2) This movie had no real substance in that there was a great deal of action but no real dialog. In a Bond movie, there is usually a great conversation between the characters. For example, those smart quips between Q and Bond or Moneypenny and Bond or the head of the MI6 and Bond. Most of the conversation in this movie very terse and uninteresting.

(3) The gadgets is what makes Bond movies so interesting and something that people cannot wait to see. Do you all remember when Q would demonstrate some cool gadget to Bond and you just had to exclaim "wow" because it was so interesting? There was none like that here. That is not to say that there was no interesting gadgets but that the gadgets that were presented only got a lukewarm response. For instance, Bond had this IPhone like cell phone that does more than your average IPhone but it does not evoke any exciting response because you know it will be within reach in a couple of years.

(4) The action while "nice" was scattered and not focused. The type of cinematography presently is to shake the camera, more or less, with the action. I personally never liked that style of movie making and find that disorienting. That's not to say that it was like that throughout the film but I noticed it during action sequences.

(5) The new Bond is still not my cup of tea. Yes, he is probably more close to what Ian Fleming envisioned for Bond; meaning, gritty and no nonsense British agent but I grew up with Roger Moore, and in my opinion, Pierce Brosnan, and of course Sean Connery, are the "classic" Bond.

I will describe what I saw in that 30 minutes and you make up your mind.

The movie starts with some chase scene through what looks like the Italian Alps. In the back of Bond car is some guy and he is delivered to MI6. The guy claims he is from some secretive agency and that they have members all over the world. At that point, one of the British agent in the room kills the guy and kills some of the people in the room and takes off, and Bond chases him until he is killed. He later searches for some clue of this organization in Haiti where he kills some man and assumes his identity. He saves a girl who is supposed to be killed by the very man whose identity he has stolen. The person who wanted her dead is suppose to be the central villain in this movie where he wants to destabilize some Latin American country so that they can take over a patch of land where there might be oil. That's it.

O.K. all Bond fans are aware of that the Q-made gadgets do not exist in reality, that the MI6 has no alpha male 00X agents and that the gargantuan terror weapons of the Bond villains could not exist in physical reality etc. etc. BUT...this is all Bond is about!

If you want to see 'realistic' or closer-to-the-reality action and violence, probably every kid on this planet knows, this not Bonds business, go and watch something else like Jason Burne in action!

We do not need a modernized more realistic Bond, we do not want a grounded average secret agent every pencil pusher could identify with. There was no need at all, to show all Bond fans that a real agent is not like James Bond. We already knew it, Dadgummit!

Bond is and must be larger than live! The super macho with super gadgets like super cars and super chicks and a laser shooting wristwatch, and not-so-subtle product placements in every Bond flick.

That is what i want to see, and not that crap we have seen in the last two 'Bond' movies.

British spy James Bond is investigating Quantum, a secret society with a shady agenda led by environmental philanthropist Dominic Greene. He uncovers a CIA-approved plot to control the water supply in Bolivia, but his reckless actions threaten to spark an international incident.

The second Bond film for Craig is perhaps a little better than its predecessor (the boring Casino Royale), but not by much in my opinion. The previous movie was too long and didn't have enough action but this one has plenty of thrills (an opening car chase, a rooftop fight, a speedboat chase, an aerial dogfight, a fiery finale) and is much shorter than all the previous Bond flicks, so no complaints there. It also has the usual great locations and some fabulous opulent sets by one of my favourite art directors, Dennis Gassner (Miller's Crossing, Big Fish), so it looks terrific. But I'm afraid I have some hefty problems, chiefly the choice of Forster as director. He's good with drama (Finding Neverland, The Kite Runner) but I'm not so sure of his action credentials - he makes the classic MTV-generation mistake of assuming that if he just cuts the action scenes together very fast that will somehow make them very exciting. Wrong; take the rooftop chase scene, which has some amazing stuntwork as Bond and the henchman fall through a skylight into an atrium and dangle precariously from ropes and scaffold. Can anybody actually follow what's happening in this sequence without watching it at about quarter-speed ? I certainly can't - we get no setups to familiarise ourselves with the place, we have almost no sense of where the actors are in relation to each other at any given time and we get at most a second to make sense of each shot before we're on to the next. This is poor, lazy filmmaking from a director who either isn't thinking from the audience's point of view or just hasn't prepared properly. My other bugbear is that there are several key plot points and character arcs which are a continuation of the Casino Royale plot - another mistake. Bond films should be episodic, dumping whatever happened in the previous one completely in favour of a new adventure. Here, Giannini and Christensen reprise their roles directly, Wright also reappears (but is not really involved in the same plot) and Yusef, the agent in the epilogue, is referenced in the previous film but doesn't actually appear. What !? Who the hell wants to remember all that ? It's a James Bond movie ferchrissake ! Just gimme guns, gadgets and girls with big knockers - I don't want the story to be Middlemarch. Despite all this though there is quite a lot fun to be had here. Craig's Bad Boy Bond is undeniably cool, albeit prone to unnecessary occasional fits of remorse, Ukranian actress Kurylenko is a lot of fun and gets in on all the action, Amalric makes a good villain with his black eyes and white suits, although as with the previous baddie his evil scheme is pretty lacklustre (something to do with fixing Bolivian water rates), Dench is solid, but best I think is goofy Arterton as consulate envoy Strawberry Fields, whose name and fate are both good old-fashioned real James Bond stuff. Whilst it doesn't quite gel together, there are some really good scenes - the best I think is when Quantum are having a top-secret meeting by attending a performance of Tosca and talking via high-tech earphones. Bond steals one of the mikes, listens to all their plans, cheerfully breaks into their conversation and then photographs them all as they hurriedly get up to leave. This movie (and this franchise) needs more humour like this. All in all then, a mixed bag - good fun, but it doesn't cut the mustard for me as a Bond flick. Could we have John Woo in the director's chair next time please ?

Saw this in Cinemas back in 2008 & thought it was an epic entry in the Franchise & a highly underrated & wrongfully hated film!

The film picks up right where the ending of Casino Royale left off, James Bond & M sniff a shadowy international network of power and corruption reaping billions. As Bond pursues the agents of an assassination attempt on M, all roads lead to Dominic Greene, a world-renowned developer of Green Technology. Greene, a nasty piece of work, is intent on securing a barren area of Bolivia in exchange for helping a strongman stage a coup there. The C. I. A. Looks the other way, and only Bond, with help from a retired spy and a mysterious beauty, stands in Greene's way. M wonders if she can trust Bond, or if vengeance possesses him. Can anyone drawn to Bond live to tell the tale?

I found the film to be epic! It's edgy, gritty & far more intense than what Casino Royale was, of course Daniel Craig himself wanted this Bond Film to be more edgy & boy did deliver! The action never let's up from the word go! The fights, explosions & faced paced snappy editing really adds to the ruthlessness of what Bond is & Craig does this very well! The villain is pretty good & the eye candy was something else!

I also noticed that this Bond Film is quite short (but that's NOT a bad thing!), the shortest of all 24 Films for that matter at 1 hour & 37 minutes & that's great along with the lighting fast pacing! The colour pallet consisting of the Dark Blues, Oranges, Golds & Sandy colours was quite a nice touch & added to the choice of scenery which matched well!

My only complaint is that the film is over pretty fast, but that's probably because I enjoy it so much! I realistically don't get the hate this film gets, like Die Another Day, I think this film is overrated, BADLY! Moreover, I felt Casino Royale dragged too much with scenes of talking & drawn out scenery shots while this film actually gets on with what it's supposed to deliver!

Overall, this is an epic Bond Film & definitely one of my favourites of Craig's Bond as well as in general!

10/10.

Cobra-faced actor Daniel Craig—the fifth to play James Bond—is in better shape than the new 007 epic "Quantum of Solace." If the previous Bond outing "Casino Royale" struck you as abysmal, the threadbare "Quantum of Solace" scrapes the bottom of the barrel. David Bradley's rough & tumble second-unit action sequences and Simon Crane's stunts provide the only bright spots. Unfortunately, neither Craig's virile 007 nor the gripping fisticuffs can salvage this mundane melodrama that resumes the narrative where "Casino Royale" left off with Bond confronting one of the villains. Subsequently, if you missed "Casino Royale," "Quantum's" plot convolutions may mystify you. Since Bond producer Cubby Broccoli died, the Bond movies have hit the skids. "Quantum" is the briefest Bond in history and the least compelling if you're a traditional 007 fan. In fact, "Monster's Ball" director Marc Forster looks like he is making a Jason Bourne thriller rather than a James Bond movie.

Ian Fleming's James Bond debuted in 1962 with Sean Connery in "Dr. No." The Bond movies revolutionized spy thrillers. Before most people could buy the next Fleming novel, United Artists churned out a sequel "From Russia, With Love." The third 007 caper "Goldfinger" created the template for Bonds, and "Thunderball" ensured the longevity of the franchise. No sooner had Bond redefined spy thrillers than everybody cloned them. Of course, Bond extravaganzas have always embraced adventure more than espionage. Incredibly, in the Cold War era, the Bond producers refused to censure the evil Soviet empire. Instead, 007 battled S.P.E.C.T.R.E, a.k.a. Special Executive for Counter-Terrorism, Revenge, and Extortion with larger-than-life villains straight out of old cliffhanger movies like Ming the Merciless from the Flash Gordon serials. The Bond movies displayed no qualms about occasionally slamming the Red Chinese. After "You Only Live Twice" in 1967 the Bonds backed off Mao's minions.

Since "Casino Royale," the new Bonds have forsaken everything that made the longest running franchise original. Audiences watch Bond movies for 007's gadgets, the girls, the exotic locales, and the outlandish stunts. Not only were Bondian foes arch villains who sought to destroy society, but they hatched bizarre plans to achieve their ends. Sometimes, Bond movies scuttled credibility to keep up with the times. For example, "Star Wars" inspired "Moonraker." Nevertheless, 007 gallivanted from one bed to the next for nymphs with naughty names, trumped a gallery of heinous henchmen, and saved the world from extinction.

By 1989, Cubby Broccoli overhauled the series with the gritty, hard-as-nails "License to Kill." The strategy backfired, and United Artists refused to promote the picture. After the "License to Kill" debacle, Pierce Brosnan donned the tuxedo and Cubby restored the Roger Moore formula. When production costs escalated, the new Bond producers sacked Brosnan and started from scratch. "Casino Royale" harkened back to the level-headed "For Your Eyes Only," but the success of prequels—primarily George Lucas's second "Star Wars" trilogy —prompted daughter Barbara Broccoli to re-start the franchise with Bond earning his license to kill.

"Quantum of Solace" breaks more rules that "Casino Royale." The trademark gun barrel opening scene that started the 20 previous Bonds now precedes the end credits. Actually, "Quantum" qualifies as a sequel to "Casino," something the Bonds have never done. Neither Ms. Moneypenny nor Q return. "Casino Royale" wrapped with Bond getting the drop on the villainous Mr. White. "Quantum" opens with 007 careening in his Aston Martin through scenic Italy with a carload of trigger-happy thugs blasting away at him. Bond has Mr. White of "Casino Royale") stashed in the trunk. He delivers White to M for interrogation. No sooner has their interrogation begun than M's bodyguard Mitchell (utility stunt man Glenn Foster) starts shooting and White escapes. Before he does get away, White chuckles about how the anonymous criminal syndicate that he belongs to has infiltrated virtually every intelligence agency in the world.

Bond chases Mitchell and kills him. Meanwhile, British Intelligence traces the money that Le Chiffre, the "Casino Royale" villain, used to a geologist in Panama. Bond tangles with a goon hiding in the dead geologist's motel room. He recovers an attaché case that leads him to a mysterious dame. Camille (Olga Kurylenko of "Hitman") has been sleeping with Dominic Green (Mathieu Amalric of "Marie Antoinette"), a hypocritical megalomaniacal environmentalist. Every time 007 collars a bad guy, Green's people ice them and frame Bond for the killing. Green plans to topple the Bolivian government so he can buy up the country's water supply and resell it at higher prices to its new president. Green installs the corrupt General Medrano (Joaquín Cosio of "Hitgirl") in the presidential palace. Medrano, it turns out, murdered Camille's father, strangled her mother and her sister. Camille's pursuit of Medrano resembles the Roger Moore Bond movie "For Your Eyes Only." Bond teams up with Camille to thwart Green and Medrano.

Just as the villains in "Casino Royale" were lightweights, the "Quantum of Solace" villains are twerps who endanger their own people more than 007. Green wields an axe against Bond but is so incompetent that he whacks his own foot. Green's scheme to monopolize natural global resources is negligible compared with better Bond villains. The fights and the shoot-outs grow monotonously repetitive. "Quantum of Solace" barely registers on the Richter scale of excitement.

I went today with high expectations but was really bored. The story line is really convoluted and difficult to follow - not because it is involved but simply because it is badly put together. Against this there is one implausible action sequence after another with Bond out running and killing everybody despite the odds - are all the baddies really such poor shots?

Then we have the central person Bond - the most wooden actor ever. We are treated to this expressionless lethal Ninja who can defeat highly trained and armed guards with just a couple of blurred-action swipes of his arms. Yes, the action sequences deserve a mention - blurred movement sequences lasting a few seconds each all edited together with a healthy dose of CGI. It felt like I was watching a Playstation game.

With so many really great spy stories to pick from why can't this film franchise buy up a really good plot instead of employing 500 stunt men.

Daniel Craig is James Bond, shaky and un-stirring.

In this effort, the franchise seems to have descended towards the lowest common denominator of crash-bang shoot-em-ups.

It more-or-less began with a completely unbelievable car chase, filmed at such a tempo that would defy the best efforts of a computer-game geek. Things happened so fast that there was barely time to observe, let alone digest them. Images began smearing even on my humungous old Trinitron obelisk. There was hardly time to anticipate tension and consequence; very quickly it grew tedious, dis-involving and frankly repellent. I kept wanting 'story' but all I seemed to get was 'action'. And it was LOUD.

So the movie went on. Short, humdrum interludes of 'exposition' became punctuated by explosive bursts of utterly preposterous and boring special-effects. Movie makers, nowadays, seem not to be testing the frontiers of CGI so much as the limit of viewer gullibility. I have to say that they've long since discovered and exceeded mine, and this piece is well into implausibility land. Quite honestly; 'The Wizard Of Oz' is more believable, even as a story.

If you like this brave new world of CGM's (Computer Game Movies), then you'll likely give this a high score. Maybe you'll even win a replay. But if you were brought up on STORY and CHARACTER, then - like me - you'll begin to lose interest shortly after the credits have rolled. It was the suave and sophisticated elements that raised Bond above the other macho types. Here, he's just another homicidal thug.

Can't Recommend A Purchase.

Quantum of Solace shifts considerable from the impressive Casino Royale. The events which unfold in Quantum of Solace are unengaging and bitterly disappointing.

The film opens with a car chase, a chase which cuts uncontrollably from one shot to another. I assume that the chase was meant to be an impressive edge-of-your-seat beginning but it had no such effect nor did it make any impression on the plot. I think that generally this sets the tone for the film.

The plot is lifeless it just doesn't ooze any excitement, charm or indeed danger. Olga Kurylenko doesn't fulfill her role adequately until later in the film, at the start she seems to really struggle. Daniel Craig nearly loses his star billing to Judi Dench, why does M have such a dominant role? And poor Gemma Arteton plays a British agent who is killed off just as quickly as she is introduced - Why?

Quantum of Solace doesn't fulfill the Bond thrill factor, it doesn't get close. The film is hopelessly devoid of intelligence, danger or charm. There are plot holes and an inability to deliver a coherent story.

The impression I had from some pre-release writeups of QoS and when it appeared from some of the newspaper reviews was Craig wanted Bond to become the brutal, violent killer of Quantum of Solace. Perhaps that isn't true - has he ever said? Whose idea was it to bin all the Bond characteristics? I surprised myself by liking Craig a lot in The Golden Compass - I thought he'd be a disaster as Asriel, although the part so far has been very short so we shall see how it turns out later. If he'd acted Bond in CR in the same way, suave and handsome and sophisticated (yes, in GC he was suave and handsome and sophisticated which proves he can be but the Bond setup seems to want him looking as ugly/unattractive as it can manage), CR would have been a better movie in spite of the messy plot and interminable product placement and some extremely silly sequences.

Having loathed CR when I first saw it, I only recently bought a very cheap 2nd hand copy of the 2-disk DVD - it seemed a shame to pass up the chance of keeping the collection going. Watching it this second time, I enjoyed it. Not quite as much as most other Bond movies, but more than Diamonds are Forever and Never Say Never Again which I like least of the Bonds. Having to accept Craig won't go away, Bond isn't acted by a superstar with exciting style, grace and terrific charisma (which I consider all the earlier Bond actors have including Lazenby) I now feel Craig did do some good acting, wasn't as wooden as I remember him from the first viewing though he still looks a bit uneasy in the part at times. I still thought Vesper completely insipid and her delight in Bond's little finger positively sick-inducing. The collapsing building collapsed far quicker than I remembered from the first viewing when I thought it interminable. I never objected to the villain anyway. The defibrillator stuff was still silly. The mobiles and laptops weren't too effective. The Aston Martin shouldn't have been wrecked so quickly, it was totally wasted. The casino scenes with the totally wrong, very inferior game were still annoying. The Omega watch thing was still utterly pathetic . But on the whole, Craig was far better than I remembered and the movie was much better than I remembered, and I will happily watch it again.

Nonetheless, I was uneasy about QoS after the very varying and not all that good reviews I'd read. My favourite newspaper, which hadn't been quite sure about CR when others adored it, panned QoS. But I was pleasantly surprised! Indeed there is no sign of humour in this Bond movie - but as it happens it doesn't seem to need it. It isn't a Bourne clone, it's a real Bond movie, and the style I felt was quite a bit lacking in CR has returned.

The much-quoted Bourne influence is probably involved in the camera work - but I liked the camera work for Bourne and unlike various others I didn't have any problem as a rule with the frenetic camera work of QoS. Now and again the camera did move just a fraction too fast, it could induce giddiness I suspect in some viewers, but beyond that I think it enhanced what might otherwise have been run of the mill fight or chase scenes, gave them a big adrenalin rush. So I commend the Director and Camera people for this.

I loved the first chase scene in particular - extremely exciting. I was just a bit disappointed by the titles though they were better than CR. The music was OK, nothing special but far better than DAD and CR.

I thought Bond chasing Vesper's killers might become trite, but it's handled well. Craig has at last grown into the part of Bond which I felt he hadn't achieved too well in CR. Bond has changed dramatically from the guy we used to know - but after QoS I think it possible Craig could, with some "serious training", eg by his boss and her staff, start to approach the sophistication of Connery's Bond. One has to remember that Connery reportedly came to the part as a rather rough diamond and was trained by the director in all the Bond classy refinements and my didn't he project all that amazingly well so it wouldn't be out of character for this rough diamond Bond to learn as Connery did. I think after seeing QoS that Craig is at last comfortable enough in the part to be able to bring Bond up to some sophistication and after all he is supposed to be Youngish Bond still so there's time. The question though is whether he and the studio want Bond to morph into Connery or if they want to continue with Young Rough-edged, touchy, aggressive Bond. I guess Craig's next Bond movie will show us what's intended. He'll be free of the Vesper baggage, available for proper sexy stuff again, let's see if he can do it and assess a decent cocktail, discover a sense of humour, seduce the girls with the cool efficiency of the earlier Bond, drop the emotional stuff a bit, forget about mediocre Vesper......

I am sorry to say that I felt this film missed the mark. I really enjoyed Casino Royale, though I did not think it was perfect, but after watching Quantum of Solace I appreciate it far more. It's not the lack of one lines, innuendo or the lack of appreciation of the fine things Bond was known for, no the problem with this film was its pacing and at times dreadful editing choices.

I was surprised that a film that boasts a 'character' director could produce a film with such lack of character. Generally you don't get a feel of anyone in this movie, bar the character of Camille, everyone else seems spare and underused and you find you just don't care. Which is exactly how you feel about the action after the first 30 minutes, to the point where it becomes painful for all the wrong reasons. The action is not even as gritty as Casino Royale, instead it feels like Bourne for babies, loads of action with no guts. At least with the action in Casino Royale you felt that the film makers were trying to make a comment on the brutality of Bonds world, a idea from Fleming that Bond is as bad as those he hunts. Sadly this film does not have that, though I really wanted it to.

I certainly did not think I would say this but bring back Martin Campbell for the next one, please. Sorry Mark you missed the mark on this one.

Yesshhh indeed

James Bond films are KNOWN for their ability to capture great stunts on film, and from the opening gambit, there's a lot of great stunts, but the camera work is filmed from so close up, that the viewer spends more time trying to figure out what they're watching more than trying to enjoy the film, itself. Normally, I spend the money for the DVD because I enjoyed watching it in the theater, but I'll need to spend the money just so I can "get" the plot. In the scene where Bond is fighting one of the bad guys on the ropes, I have to try and keep track of where Bond is and even had to retrace his steps once to make sure it was him who ended up where he is. I'm sorry, but the "reality feel" to this movie is what killed it for me.

As for the plot, itself, I guess he's trying to keep someone from taking over some country's water supply. Before seeing this movie, I heard he was on some vendetta against someone who killed his girlfriend in the last movie. Oh, wait! This is supposed to take place BEFORE the first James Bond movie ever came out (where Sean Connery was nothing but a high class detective for the British government), but I never saw any cell phones in use between 1965 and 1980 (or any of the computers they used, either, for that matter).

I really hate to rip on a movie, especially one where I'm a big fan of the saga, itself. In preparing for this movie, I watched some of the "In-Demand" material on Comcast cable (shameless plug...sorry) and they talked a little about the history of the character, James Bond. One of the points they mentioned was that writers and critics thought the movie line would die once the cold war was over (Judi Dench's character even mentioned in the LAST Bond movie that she "missed the Cold War"), but I think they should have dug that time capsule back up and laid this film to rest next to that idea instead of releasing it in theaters. The critics estimate about $60 million in sales for this movie, but I think that's hoping for a little much...maybe $50 million (10 million for each star I give it...).

5 stars out of 10

I really wanted to like Quantum of Solace, but try as I might it just wasn't possible. This film did not work on any level and since I love Bond films and count the days until their release I was very disappointed to find that Quantum of Solace wasn't worth the wait. I would say it's the worst Bond film ever, but I can't because it wasn't really a Bond film at all. It did have James Bond in it, but that's where the similarity ends. The opening sequence was unwatchable with bad cuts coming at me so quickly no information was to be had until the title sequence began. Then there was the awful theme song. I mean, I like the White Stripes and all, but really where's Shirley Bassey when you need her? The rest of the soundtrack isn't any better. Music just seems to be arbitrarily placed to fill up space with no relationship to the scenes at hand. Photographically most of the action sequences are largely out of focus and shot so closely no tension what so ever builds during the entire length of this film. This results in a lack of danger being felt and a separation of the audience from the film itself. You never care about the characters and that is the death of any film. The story is thin and full of holes. Actually there is not much story at all. Seems like the filmmakers got spooked by the Bourne films and tried to make something comparable but just ended up with a washed out watered down version of a bad Bourne film. Sad really. There is one good part. Near the end, for a split second, a small snippet of the original Bond theme is played. That's the only thing about this film worth anything. It is such a bad day for Bond to have this drivel put out to represent what Bond has meant for the last 45 years. As I said earlier, usually I can't wait for the release of next Bond film. During the screening of this disaster I couldn't wait for it to end and release me from the theater. What a painfully sad and irresponsible destruction of the Bond legacy.

*Plot Spoilers* but there is very little plot to be given away in this film! I had a hard time with CR and really hoped that QoS would be more Bond but I was to be sadly disappointed! Am I the only person left who likes a good plot, strong characters, gadgets, car chases and romance in a Bond film.....

Daniel Craig is the most heartless Bond I have seen, He does not seem to a loyalty to anyone or his country, He's supposed to be everything thats cool about being a British agent but he was empty and charmless! The scene where Rene Mathis ends up in the boot of the car, gets shot and dies in Bonds arm, then has his money stolen was utterly immoral and unheroic.

Many people have already written about how badly shot and directed QoS was. So I will get to main concern with QoS,

What UPSET and OFFENDED me most was the implied rape scene near the end! This was disgusting and should not be in a Bond film or any film with a 12A rating!! The subplot of sexual assault shocked me. If it has been a 15 or even a 18 I might have expected to see something of this nature in the film. I have a 12 year old niece who would have had nightmares if she'd seen QoS. I think the 12A rating is a complete cop out !!!! QoS to me is a 15 .

I hope is not just me that believes that films are becoming too desensitised, QoS is a plain example of this. I don't think I'll waste time and money seeing any future Bond films. Bring back Pierce Brosnan and his charm and warmth!

To end on a positive, Dame Dudi Dench had the only good line in the film.

Save your money. This movie is terrible and has nothing whatsoever to do with the iconic character of James Bond.

Story: 0/10. The main plot was the worst of any Bond movie. Instead of saving the world, Bond is saving the people of a 3rd world country a few pennies on their water bill. Instead of fighting for the good of the free world, Bond is on a heartless revenge killing spree, and the free world is portrayed as almost universally corrupt. But the worst offense is the contrived "explosive hotel" in the middle of nowhere, in the desert. I'll bet they get a lot of tourism there! At least its made of some kind of material that burns without a single trace of smoke... -groan-!

Characters: 1/10. Craig is terrible as bond, he has no charisma whatsoever. He broods for the entire film, never smiling, never delivering that cheeky charm that Bond should. The main Bond girl is a bundle of laughs... no wait, strike that, she's a depressing lump. The CIA girl is actually OK (thus the 1 point) but only sticks around for about 2 minutes before being killed. Felix, instead of being a smart, useful, and funny friend, is a waste of screen time and contributes nothing at all to the story. The villain does not even seem evil, just like a corrupt businessman (FAR from the world-domination-seeking villains of past). The deposed dictator is unbelievable and the implied rape scene at the end should NOT be in a bond film. M is the same as the last few Bond movies, a weak, bleeding-heart "mother" who could not possibly have the respect of MI6 agents in the real world.

Production: 0/10. The action scenes have such short cuts that you can't focus on any of them. The result is utter confusion about who is punching whom. There are obvious and avoidable errors such as cutting between two scenes and the actors have changed positions.

Franchise Loyalty: 0/10. Rename the main character and you would never be able to guess that this is a Bond film. You would probably guess it's a Bourne film. I don't demand the clichés such as "Bond, James Bond" (though you certainly won't find that here). But I do demand that the main character be a likable British guy showing off cool spy gadgets and attacking problems with intelligence rather than always brute force. There were no gadgets-not a single one!-and Bond was a cold-blooded murderer.

This movie would be a below-average effort for a generic action flick. But putting the name "Bond" on it debases and defiles the Bond franchise. Those responsible for this atrocity should be ashamed of what they've done to try to turn a quick buck on a legendary franchise.

This has to be THE worst bond film of all time! Right from the opening scene, which is traditionally an action packed opening to blow you away, was awful. It's fast paced action was lost by a camera set too close to the action and flicking between camera shots so fast it was subliminal and far to fast for the human brain to register any action. After a few seconds I was totally lost, as was everyone else I spoke too.

This style continued throughout any action scene in the film, making them unwatchable and irritating. The fight scene in the theatre was lost, again too much flicking between camera shots. Yes it's great that modern cameras can get you "into the action" but there is such a thing as moving in too close and loosing all perspective of action.

I love Bond films, but a Bond film needs to have, Gadgets, Fast cars, witty comments, good music, ( Sorry Jack White ) Q and a baddie with another baddie above him and one above him! Daniel Craig is a good Bond, but give him the script to make him great.

I was sorely disappointed, from the opening sequence which seemed like a first year animation students shot at being retro to the fact that there is not even one funny " before killing" lines or even any great dialog with the two forgettable women. And Bond sleeps with only one of them!!! Unforgivable. The action sequences were great but then thats expected, no gadgets except a mobile phone and a plot that's just a lot of pure nonsense. Im sure given a better script Daniel Craig is capable of much more.

Please bring back the politically incorrect and corny dialog mouthing 007.

Released in 2008, Daniel Craig returns as James Bond for the second time, in the 22nd official film outing for the character created by Sir Ian Fleming.

This film picks up straight after the events that ended "Casino Royale", with Bond capturing Mr White and returning him to M for interrogation about a mysterious organisation called Quantum. One of M's bodyguards is a double agent and attacks M, allowing White to escape, but Bond deals with the bodyguard. Bond and M discover that he had a contact in Haiti, Edmund Slate who is a hitman that is hunting Camile Montes, on the orders of entrepreneur Dominic Greene. Camille in turn is hunting General Medrano for killing her family. Greene is assisting the General to overthrow the government, in exchange for expanse of barren space in the desert, so having Camille interfering would be bad for business. Bond rescues Camille from General Medrano and follows Greene to Austria where he plans to do a deal with members of Quantum. Bond infiltrates the meeting, which is taking place at an open-air Opera, but he is attacked. Bond kills one of his attackers, throwing him off a roof. This doesn't go down well as the CIA have signed an none-interference deal for stock in Bolivian oil, and also because the victim was a Special Branch body guard working for Quantum member Guy Haines, who is an advisor to the British Prime Minister. M has no choice but to revoke Bond's passport and credit cards. Bond goes to meet Rene Mathis in Italy for help, and this eventually takes him Bolivia. Bond is intercepted by an agent call Strawberry Fields who insists that Bond return to London to debrief, but he seduces her instead and decides to stay in Bolivia. At a party Bond once again rescues Camille from Green/ Medrano. On leaving the party to look at some plans for the Tierra project that Camille has, they are stopped by local police that have been paid off by Greene/Medrano, who find Mathis in the boot of the car beaten and bloody. Mathis is duly executed, and with his dying words he tells Bond to forgive him and Vesper (see Casino Royale) for everything that happened previously. Bond and Camille decide to check out the land that Quantum want in the desert but are shot down and end up in a massive sink hole in the desert. Here they discover the evil plot; the fresh water supply is being kept away from the populous to monopolise it. Returning to La Paz, Bond meets M who informs him that Strawberry Fields was found dead, drown in crude oil. Bond also meets CIA agent Felix Leiter who is supposed to be capturing Bond, but instead secretly tips him off about Greene and Medrano's meeting in the Atacama Desert. Bond and Camille head to an eco-hotel in the Atacama Desert where they seek vengeance against Greene/Medrano. Bond takes the opportunity to kill the chief of police who had Mathis executed while Camille goes after General Medrano for killing her family. Bond captures Greene, interrogates him, and then dumps him in the middle of the desert with only a can of crude oil for liquid. With the new information about Quantum, Bond travels to Russia to find Vesper Lynd's former lover, Kabira, a member of Quantum himself, who seduces women with valuable connections. Bond tells the latest target, a Canadian Intelligence agent about Kabira's intentions, sparing her from the same fate as Vesper, and then he leaves. MI6 arrest Kabira and when meeting up with M again, she tells Bond that Greene died in the desert having drunk the engine oil.

This Bond film was developed while the previous one ("Casino Royale") was still being made, which makes sense as it carries across a lot of the hidden plot from the first film. Michael G Wilson, Daniel Craig and Marc Forster wrote some sections of the film themselves due to a writer's strike, but ultimately, it is Paul Haggis, Neal Purvis and Robert Wade who are credited with the writing on QOS. Marc Forster took his place in the director's chair to lead the film, with Wilson going back into the producer's chair alongside Barbara Broccoli. David Arnold once again takes up the credit of music, which makes it his fifth outing in that department on a Bond film. With a budget believed to be somewhere in the region of $225 million, this film did well and grossed nearly $600 million at the global box office. The runtime here though is the shortest in all of the Bond franchise, topping out at 106 minutes end to end.

After the success of Daniel Craig's first outing in the rebooted franchise, he was able to come at this film with less of a backlash. He made a conscious decision to get fitter because of the demands of the film would be higher, unlike the more relaxed feel of "Casino Royale". He delivers another top class and authentic performance. He is gritty and explosive, while being debonair and cool at times. He brings an air of anger and pain into his performance, which was motivated by the characters loss in the previous film. While on the surface he is able to adapt to all the situations he finds himself in, Craig's eyes are the true gateway to his performance, easily giving away the portrayal that he is aiming for; they are almost glazed and cold when he has to deliver a bullet to a foe, but they are kind and caring when he has to console friends. Opposite Craig and featuring heavily in the film is Olga Kurlenko as Camille Montes, a Bolivian agent who is hunting General Medrano with a vendetta. Although she is Ukrainian, she carries herself off well as Hispanic, never letting up at any point to deceive her role. She is engaging and tough and does well in every scene she is in.

Mathieu Amalric plays Dominic Greene, the main villain of the piece. He is deceivingly good as the bad guy, but probably will not be remembered that long as he plays the baddie as a relatively normal person. He is not disfigured in any way like previous Bond villains. The beauty in his performance is that he could be an anybody that is corrupt on the inside rather than disfigured on the outside. He comes across a typical entrepreneur or politician, which makes him more of a threat in my eyes, on more real to the world we live in.

Also cast in the movie are Judie Dench who returns as Bond's boss M. Jeffrey Wright reprises his role as CIA operative and long-time friend of Bond, Felix Leiter. Giancarlo Giannini returns as Rene Mathis.

Coming off the back off "Casino Royale" this film feels like a complete change of pace. It is fast, it is brutal, and it is angry. The film retains a lot of the glitz and glamour you expect to see in a Bond film, especially with its locations and events, but it also feels rawer and dirtier in places too. This feels like a nice touch and embeds the film in some reality, which is a million miles away from previous films like "Moonraker". It was noted that this film features at least 250 "trivial or severely violent" acts, making it one of the more nastier titles in the franchise, especially when you consider that it's got the shortest runtime in the franchise universe, and when you realize that "Dr No" had 109 acts of violence in it. I enjoyed the film and enjoyed the direction it went in after the more reserved film that preceded it. As it is based on an original concept by producer Michael G Wilson, I cannot compare it to anything that has come before it in literature form. The main negative from me is that there is a lot packed into the film and sometimes it can be a bit overbearing and confusing. It goes from one place to another in quick succession, things are not really slowed down to explain in detail to its audience, and some of the action is edited in a way that makes it choppy and difficult to watch. Despite that it is nice to watch Bond emotionally disconnected from the world due to his inner turmoil and pain, yet still focussed on doing the right thing for Queen and country, and in fact the entire world.

If you are a fan of Bond films this is a must. If you enjoy action and espionage films this is also a good go-to movie. Be prepared for a fast paced, adrenaline filled, and violent action film and you will surely come away from this with a barrel of enjoyment.

In terms of Bond films this is a 7 out of 10. In terms of movies in the long and illustrious history of film I would give this a 6 out of 10.

In his second James Bond film, QUANTUM OF SOLACE (QoS), the riveting Daniel Craig again proves he's the most ruthless 007 since Sean Connery, blasting the Bond formula with a breath of fresh air -- that is, when he and the cast can catch their breath between great rock'em-sock'em action scenes that wouldn't be out of place in the BOURNE movies (no surprise, since some of the BOURNE personnel were on board)! Although director Marc Forster effectively films all of QoS's running, jumping, and doing, I would have liked the movie even more if the plotting and characterization had gotten as much screen time as the frenzied action sequences, like the excellent CASINO ROYALE. (I know I'm dating myself here, but it's still hard for me to invoke the title "CASINO ROYALE" without thinking of the 1967 comedy version. :-) But I digress...) I do hope the next Bond film has a better balance of action, plot, characterization and emotion, otherwise we might as well be watching a video game. I liked the stern yet warm-beneath-the-surface, almost mother-son relationship that Craig's Bond and Dame Judi Dench's M are developing (Bond wryly acknowledges this in a throwaway line). I also liked Olga Kurylenko as Bond's revenge-minded main love interest, Camille; she's one of the few good-guy Bond girls who can take care of herself instead of "Oh, James!"-ing all over the place. I wish they'd made better use of the winsome Gemma Arterton, though; she deserved to do more than just invoke GOLDFINGER. Heck, with all the running around the characters did on screen, I didn't even realize Ms. Fields' first name was Strawberry until I saw it in the closing credits! I wish they'd done more with Arterton's character, but at least she got endearingly naked with Bond. Giancarlo Giannini and Jeffrey Wright return and are most welcome, although Wright still doesn't get as much to do in the role of Felix Leiter as he should. Ah, well, now that Bond has avenged his beloved Vesper's death and gotten the dying-of-thirst Dominic Greene (reminiscent of his MUNICH character) to drink oil, maybe the next Bond film can concentrate on new plots and scenarios with a better balance of all the elements that make 007 fun to watch, and they'll let Daniel Craig crack a smile -- or at least a cool, knowing smirk -- more often. :-)

Is this the end of Bond? I have been a die-hard bond fan for years, even forgiving the Timothy Dalton years, but this was just plain awful. I should have known it would be bad as soon as I heard the theme song! Rap for a Bond song PLEASE!!!! Casino Royale was great and really set itself up for a great sequel, but instead we get two hours of mindless chases and a James Bond that has no idea what he is doing. The plot for this movie was supposed to be simple. Bond goes after the guys that killed Vespa. So the writers set up this great shadow syndicate plot, but too bad we will never know who they are because this movie goes nowhere and explains nothing. To sum up, Bond fans stay away from this one and lets hope they can save the franchise. Hollywood has finally done it they made Bond hip enough for everybody and by doing so destroyed an era. Bring back Pierce!!!!

For me this has to be the worst Bond movie ever.

Who was the villain? Who was the villain's number one henchman? What was the plot about? Oil, no, water, no, oil.

Too bad the writers of this movie didn't perish in the Bolivian desert, before they completed the script.

Too many special effects, not enough ( any ) character development, and why the dead woman, covered in oil, on the bed, a la Goldfinger.

Geez, I would even welcome back Roger Moore, and some of the script writers from those substandard episodes. At least they were humorous.

A very sad attempt in this latest installment of the franchise.

After the great Casino Royale script, this film is quite a let down. Part of that has to do with Mark Forester as directing only his 7th film. While he attempts to redefine the action of Bond in this more active sequel for Royale, his action sequences are often rough and choppy. There are several noticeable times in the movie where it seems everything just stops and then restarts after a jump in time (and sequence).

While two of the writers wrote this and Casino Royale, it is quite obvious that the script is not as strong here as in the last film. Action dominates this one and really it pulls this down in quality compared with Craig's first outing. The last one had more Ian Fleming in the writing.

There is a 35 year reminder of Goldfinger with a femme fa-tale killing of a woman coated with Oil instead of Gold, supposedly symbolic of the world oil shortage going on today. The action while hard and fast throughout the film just isn't quite up to other Bond films in the series.

Daniel Craig at 5 feet 10 inches is shorter than many Bonds which means he sees more eye to ey with more women than previous Bonds. There is less sex in this film than others in the series too. This film at less than 2 hours is one of the shortest films of the entire series.

The opening sequence is a car chase in which Bond brings villain in to M. Then M and Bond find out there is a secret organization which is inside of every agency including the British Secret Service. It is this organization Bond pursues the rest of the film including getting even with the guy who killed his girl in Casino Royale.

There will almost certainly be another Bond film, which could sequel this opened ended effort of trying to eliminate the Quantum. Hopefully the next film will offer a better story and more realistic stunt sequences instead of the choppy ones this film has.

I have just come from watching the latest Bond film, and I am very disappointed. A production team sat around and decided that as the Bourne films were good at a scene switch every 30 frames a scene switch every 15 frames would be twice as good. I was bored. I really can't describe how poor this film is. Static cameras, short cut and long cuts on trolleys. Then poor (long) exposure times and slow film to generate sense of action, just revealed amateurish cinematography. If you really need to see this wait for the DVD, I suspect it won't be that long. Apparently I have to elaborate on how poor this film is, so that I can post here. Well it is bad, rubbish and a disgrace. There is little or no direction, the cameramen directed the film directed by the producers. Craig and Dench will happily take their fee. No idea or interest in the other characters.

Quantum of Solace is about as fun as watching a car crash in slow motion. All you get is the collision, but it takes forever to get to that conclusion - The car has been crushed. Yes, we noticed. When the credits rolled for this movie, I had a difficult time trying to understand what it was about or what really happened in it, or rather which parts of these loose story threads they intended to be the actual "story" - all I knew for sure was that James Bond had killed a load of people. Actually, I'm going to make it easy on you. Quantum of Solace is about James Bond killing people. That's all you'll get from it. The verdict? Well, despite having less pretensions it is better than the downright horrible Rambo movie that came out early this year. How about that.

I had problems with Casino Royale, but I was the minority, and you'll just have to let those things go. Besides, it was a well-made piece of spy action, be that as it may that I didn't connect with it in the same way others did. Point is, I went in to Quantum of Solace knowing what to expect. I knew I would have to take this movie for what it was. Problem? That's just not very much.

So, the movie starts off with a routine car chase in Sierra, Italy. Along the narrow roads, Craig's bitter face is observing the random machine gun blokes in his windshield. I am already annoyed. I don't know who's to blame for this, it could be director Mark Forster or it could be the editors, but somebody is clearly not familiar with the action genre. Not only is this sequence tired and clichéd (and we are now talking about a 007 intro, where even the worst movies in the series could conjure up something imaginative in the first minutes), but it also has that classical flaw of action movies made by people with no knowledge of the genre - the scene isn't staged, but barely composed by a number of cuts. It's the easy way out, and it just becomes frantic, you loose your sense of orientation and eventually you just loose interest and starts to wait for the scene to be over, letting us get on with the movie. As the movie does get on, it is almost immediately interrupted by a chase sequence, also with every possibility to be good but spoiled by this boring mere montage of quick cuts.

From then on, the movie goes on and on and on and on. We get a car chase, a boat chase, an airplane chase, a fist fight, another fist fight, a shootout, an escape run, you name it, we've got it all. But it's all done by the numbers, you may say that a movie like The World Is Not Enough (1999) was hitting the marks of the formula, but Quantum of Solace is an action movie where every scene is obligatory and on the marks. Bond enters a quiet room, closes the door behind him, takes a few steps in the room. Count to four and there's a guy jumping out from the closet. There are two plot-point characters introduced... when will one be knocked off by the bad guys and when will the other turn out to be a double-crossing spy? And as I said, all of the action sequences are done with the same type of forced editing that isn't exhilarating, but will merely give you a headache. Not only is this just another action movie, it's a bad action movie.

You won't get anywhere trying to follow the story of this movie. Bond is on the trail of a crime organisation, well I guess that's natural. We don't get to know if 007 really is motivated by revenge or something else, and not in that top-of-the-iceberg/think-for-yourself kind of way, but we are simply not being told what he's thinking, what he's up to or, by that, what the point of the movie is. The villain, Greene (the only name in the movie tying to the tradition of funny names) is acting out as an environmentalist hero, but is actually in to buy up the water supply of Bolivia, by dealing with some mafia Lawrences there. Pretty exciting stuff, right?

I want to write more about Quantum of Solace, but I can't find anything interesting to say about it and that pretty much sums up the whole thing. It's a cold, gray, dead and poorly executed action film that's pretty boring to watch. That's it.

This was a fun Bond movie and had more action than the slightly more subdued Casino Royale. The Bond girls feel a little outdated and constantly damsels in distress, though Camille bucks this trend a bit.

QUANTUM OF SOLACE (2008) ***1/2 Daniel Craig, Olga Kurylenko, Mathieu Amalric, Judi Dench, Giancarlo Giannini, Gemma Arterton, Jeffrey Wright, David Harbour, Jesper Christensen. Excellent sequel to "CASINO ROYALE" picking up right from that film's end with James Bond (Craig brooding affectively again as 007) seeking vengeance for the death of his lover by intercepting an international plot to abscond with the world's supply of water by French corporate snake Dominic Greene (a suitably reptilian turn by Amalric) and teaming up with hottie Camille (smoldering Kurylenko), who also has a personal vendetta to meke out. Slam-bang action (the opening car chase is arguably one of the best ever committed to celluloid) with some great fight sequences, a hairy air and sea chase, and some death-defying set pieces (the final fiery climax is a dilly) which mark for a new blood into the venerable franchise (thanks to Paul Haggis, Neal Purvis & Robert Wade's mature script and skillful direction by the unlikely indie wunderkind Marc Forster). Kudos to the snappy editing by Matt Chesse and Richard Pearson.

What a big step-down QoS is. If you are expecting the Godfather Part II or a sequel equal to The Dark Knight you are in for a huge disappointment. Despite being the highest budgeted Bond film ever (just where all the money went is beyond me), QoS is half-hearted and extremely simple. Of all the Bond films in history I've never seen one as straight-forward as this. Yet despite the simplistic nature, it's also an incomprehensible mess. I kid you not...you've NEVER seen an absolute MESS OF A FILM than this.

As a direct sequel to Casino Royale the film drops pretty much ALL plot and focuses on action. What little story there is, almost the same story from A View to a Kill (which was actually a carbon copy of Goldfinger), is nothing more than a weak excuse to string together a bunch of action scenes that feel more like alternate Jason Bourne fights rather than a Bond film. There's no mystery, no puzzle-solving and nothing resembling dangerous espionage. The 105-minute running time cripples QoS. Don't get me wrong, I hate films that are padded with dead weight, but QoS just feels too light and too hurried.

Daniel Craig handles the action well, but is thoroughly un-engaging when it comes to the emotional scenes. I don't like his interpretation of Bond and I am sick to death of all these 'tragic action heroes' that are so damn common these days. I'm also sick of guns as an extension of manhood, which QoS has a lot of.

The British press made a big hoo-hah over Gemma Arterton being cast as a Bond Girl (a term that I really don't like), but I swear she's in it for about five minutes and has about ten lines of dialogue before she meets a strange end in an obscure Goldfinger reference.

Eon made a big mistake in hiring Marc Forster. The class and elegance of Casino Royale has been replaced by the raging, confused testosterone of a hormonal fourteen-year-old boy. Robert Wade and Neal Purvis (who have spent way too long with the series) delivered their worst Bond screenplay so far. It's like they were afraid to put any kind of signature on it, resulting in the film feeling completely alien to the Bond universe. Take away the character and this unintelligible drivel could be any Statham or Seagal straight-to-DVD trash. I could type paragraphs and paragraphs about how utterly asinine the plot is, but I've got better things to do with my time, like pressing a burning iron against my skin.

Bond should call it a day. He's been in the movies for close to 50 years and, in my opinion, he's had too many restarts, too many women, and too many missions. Bond is a dinosaur and completely out of place in the modern world. Despite attempts at making him relevant and contemporary, I feel that his time is up and that he should step aside for a new hero. Just not a 'tragic' one.

For 40+ years, from Dr. No to Die Another Day and Sean Connery to Pierce Brosnan, the James Bond formula remained basically the same: The gun-barrel opening, a lot of action, Bond says a few catchphrases ("Bond, James Bond" and "Shaken, Not Stirred"), Bond gets the girl, and the film ends with the James Bond theme pounding in the background.

A few years ago, however, a new Bond (Daniel Craig) brought a new formula (prequel) to the Bond franchise with Casino Royale, a gripping film that satisfies action fans as well as provides all the traditional Bond landmarks (albeit some in their inaugural forms) as described above. As Casino Royale ended, audiences were left feeling as if the "Craig Bond" was well on his way to becoming the Bond we know and love.

The trouble is, the ending of Quantum of Solace does the EXACT same thing...with little to no character development to back it up. For a basic plot summary, Bond spends the entire film trying to gain a measure of revenge for the death of Vesper, his girlfriend, in Casino Royale. A lot of fast cars, unbelievable chase scenes, and M-defying later, and supposedly Bond has reconciled his past and now able to move forward.

Unfortunately, nothing particularly engaging happened during that time to make me believe as if Bond really is a changed man. I think the problem is that Craig is never really allowed to wildly emote in a vengeful fashion...he harbors the same stoic expression the entire film. I would have loved to have seen a Matthew Fox-esque emotive rant that LOST fans have come to appreciate, but it just never happened. The strange thing is that it wasn't just overshadowed by the crazy action scenes...those were pretty much balanced for a Bond film. Just no emotion whatsoever.

Thus, while I appreciate this film's goal of trying to allow Bond to move on from his greatest tragedy, it just doesn't work. I would actually rather see a Bond film such as "Tomorrow Never Dies" or "The World Is Not Enough", installments that were heavy on the schtick and light on the plot, than this heavy film that didn't really get me excited until the Bond theme blared before the end credits.

Die-hard Bond fans will watch this film regardless of what I say, but this is a movie that you can skip and really not miss any of the early-Bond character development that was so compelling in Craig's first Bond effort.

OK, so you've already heard the opening credits song is lame. It is, but that's the least of this flick's problems.

Then again, this movie might be for you if...

...you didn't get enough of Vesper whatshername in Casino Royale. She's mentioned ad nauseum as Bond's motivation in QoS, which is just as well, because the villains in this movie are so uninspired they probably couldn't get a real secret agent to stay an extra five minutes at the office: "Oh, it's Dominic Greene? I'll follow up in the morning. Evening, Moneypenny!"

...you needed to see James Bond destroy another Italian construction site.

...you were always upset that there were no scenes of Bernard Lee as M tweezing his nasal hairs. In this one you get to see Dame Judi Dench applying and removing face cream, so that's pretty close. It could have been worse, for a minute it looked like a setup for a nude scene.

That's right, you might enjoy this movie if...

...you thought Joe Don Baker's character in The Living Daylights was too well developed and you prefer your overweight military stooges to have less depth.

...you are sick of the memorable, relentless villainous sidekicks with special abilities, like Odd Job, Jaws, Tee Hee, and Red Grant. In this movie, the sidekick's only powers are a bad Jim Carrey Dumb and Dumber haircut and a creepy Quentin Tarantino vibe. And unlike the creepiest James Bond villain ever - Crispin Glover's dad - the QoS sidekick doesn't add any comic relief.

...you are a big fan of the Bourne, Batman, Blair Witch school of shakycam, 1/2-second per scene editing. This movie has at least 5 'big' action sequences that are utterly inscrutable. I think one of them was a car chase, and there might have been a boat in there somewhere, I'm not sure. Maybe some really cool stunts were performed in the making of QoS, but only the crew members know for sure, because it's too hard to tell from the finished product.

In fact, I'm confident you'll love this movie if...

...you hate high-tech gadgets on boats, cars, and planes, and would prefer Bond to defeat vast armies of better equipped foes armed only with the immutable laws of Hollywood (im)probability.

...you are tired of the elaborate sets used for the big finales in previous James Bond movies and wish they would just get real already and blow up a 3-story box out in the middle of nowhere with pretty much nothing at stake.

...you already knew that most cops are bad (Pride and Glory) and most government agents are bad (Body of Lies), but needed to be reminded that the USA is so bad it would even sell out James Bond.

...you have been waiting for Hollywood to give another South American country its comeuppance ever since Homer Simpson and family went to Brazil. The Bolivian air force doesn't come off too well in this one.

...you're a big Airwolf fan and miss all those scenes of antique airplanes chasing each other. Too bad in this one Stringfellow Hawke doesn't come swooping in and finish them both off.

As a fan of Timothy Dalton (from Flash Gordon, not The Rocketeer), I am always glad to see his JB films move up a notch or two from the bottom ranks. Frankly, his .500 batting average as Bond is better than Brosnan's, and Quantum of Solace makes Licence to Kill look like Lawrence of Arabia. QoS is so bad, I'm pretty sure I could actually re-watch The World is Not Enough before I could sit through this turkey again.

Totally apart from representing the artistic nadir of the series, Quantum of Solace is of major historical significance for another reason. Along with Transformers and Casino Royale, it can be placed in a time capsule so that future historians will have evidence of all of the really cool cars that American automakers failed to make available for sale in the U.S. before they went bankrupt. The new Camaro is taking longer to release than the Boeing 787, and the last two James Bond movies have featured very attractive small cars from Ford that are apparently for sale only in the Caribbean. WTF?

On the other hand... OLGA KURYLENKO!!!

This latest Bond is a collection of pretty poorly organised set pieces strung together by a plot that is actually made of holes. I didn't like Casino Royale With Cheese much but I respected the intention behind it. I still think they should have just called it "Bourne Begins" and had done with it but then (thank God) I don't work in UA's marketing department. Having said that, I liked Craig as Bond and I was looking forward to this film in the hope that they could do something different to Casino. They did. Sadly not in a good way.

Craig has none of the panache or wit he displayed in Casino and while I respect Kurilenko's artistry (in removing all clothing at every opportunity) I don't think she's a great actress and not even a great Bond girl. Dench comes off as indecisive, one minute she's condemning Bond the next supporting him. None of this is the actors fault who, I think, do as much as they can with what they have but what they do have is minimal.

--Spoiler--

Starting moments after the end of the last film Bond is chased to Siena with the captured Mr White in the boot of his car. White promptly escapes courtesy of M's bodyguard who, it turns out, was actually Mr Deus E. MacHina. Bond pursues him across the rooftops of Siena before they both fall into a big Heath Robinson / Rube Goldberg machine and Bond kills him.

Chasing a money trail to Haiti, Bond decides to rescue noted Bolivian Irina Androvnova Norkoutski from the clutches of the evil General Belgrano who's kidnapped her at the behest of her boyfriend Mr Green, Mr White's colleague. Sadly Messrs Teal, Magenta and Cyan wont be appearing until the next film. The General wants Mr Green's money to finance his coup in Bolivia. He's spotted that, after about 30 years of universal suffrage, free elections and political stability, what the Bolivians really want is another bloody great civil war.

The Americans (now taking over from the British as the world's bad guys) have agreed to recognise the General as the head of the Bolivian government if they can have the oil that they believe Mr Green has found under the Bolivian desert. Bond follows Green to Austria and listens in on a board meeting of SMERSH... sorry SPECTRE... sorry, Quantum. During his escape he appears to have killed a special branch bodyguard and is disavowed. He recruits his colleague Mathis (from Casino)and the two of them head off to Bolivia where they are met by Totty McDoomed (Gemma Arterton, fresh from critical pannage in unilateral sh1tfest St Trinians), an attractive attaché from the British Consulate. The film makers, wisely realising that it takes too much effort to write sexy, witty dialogue, have Bond seduce Totty in one of the most ludicrous moments in film history. Bond and Totty go up to his suite and Bond says "I cant find the stationary" and in the next scene he and Totty are in bed together. Yer-what!? It's like a badly made porno without the money shot. Did I miss the memo about the pant-dampening eroticism of stationary? As a man, do I fail to see Bond's smouldering seductiveness? This is a moment that achieves new heights in the pantheon of lazy writing.

Bond gets hold of a plane and with Irina in tow goes in search of Mr Green's proxy and discover that Green's been collecting water not oil. It's lucky for him that Bolivia only has one source of water because otherwise it might be difficult to corner the entire country's supply.

Returning to the hotel, Totty has been drowned in oil. For why, we are never told. Possibly Green is just kinky that way but given that it's already been established that his plan involves water not oil it's a strange choice. Bond doesn't have time to lament the loss of another of the world's great stationary fetishists because the CIA want him dead. He escapes and, for reasons too secret to let the audience in on, knows to chase Green and the General to a hotel in the middle of the Bolivian desert. It turns out that the Hotel, built on sustainable environmental principles is also the worlds most flammable building so Bond sets it on fire. Take that environmentalism! I'm not a massive environmentalist (as can be judged by the fact that I normally leave the "environ" out when using the word) but I cannot help but think that this is some crazed subconscious attack on the whole movement by the writer. Perhaps his father was killed by some particularly "live" yogurt.

While the building collapses Bond kills some people and cripples Green. Camille kills the General. Bond maroons Green in the middle of the desert with a only can of motor oil to drink presumably in recompense for drowning Totty in the stuff.

Finally Bond goes to Russia and find's dead ex Vespa's boyfriend who is busy seducing a new target. Bond has the boyfriend arrested and forgives Vespa for betraying him in Casino.

--Spoiler--

Quantum of Balls has the realism of Moonraper, the originality of Never Say Hairpiece Again, the acting of On Her Majesties Big Pile of Australian Pants, the continuity of The World Is Not ADD Enough, and all the style of Octopieceofeck. It's sort of a "perfect storm" of bad Bond films. Frankly it should be avoided like the plague.

The answer is: Neither!

I already thought Casino Royale was just "ok" and I really hoped that Quantom Of Solace would make up for the lack of Bond-characteristics in Casino Royale. Unfortunately it did not. This is the worst Bond movie ever made.

Where are the unique Bond gadgets? Where is Q? Where is the English humor? Where is the shaken not stirred Martini? Where is "my name is Bond, James Bond"? Or better yet: Where IS James Bond? This James Bond is more a kind of Jason Bourne, but that would too much credit for this James Bond. Calling the character James Bond is already too much credit!

According to me this Bond movie is just another action movie, which may not even be put near the Bond series! The directing was poor, there was no real excitement, everything was very predictable. We even considered leaving the theater early because we were bored by this movie. Just because we hoped that the ending might be good, we sat out this movie. Too bad it did not get any better.

I really hope the next Bond movie (if there is a next) will be more Bond like and less Bourne like. What a waste of my buck.

I suppose that some posters don't know that Ian Fleming put his own exploits into his novels which were bought to the screen, TV and later introduced Sean Connery who at once became the epitome of James Bond, 007. Well, as we know that was some time ago and now the James Bond series is the most profitable in screen history. Once upon a time we looked at Bond as being the cooliest man to grace the screen. He was handsome, smart, intelligent, was authorized to carry a gun and the women simply dropped their knickers when he looked their way or just said his name. O K, now we come to this latest Bond outing Quantum of Solace a film that was not thought out and was completely messed up by the director and his second team. The plot was just too hard to follow and make matters worse, you didn't even care. All we saw was countless chase sequences that were too violent to be real, Judy Dench looking her age and saying stupid things and Daniel Craig looking like a hunk that you took home on Saturday night and certainly not like James Bond. All in all, I was very disappointed in this outing and hope and pray that the producers go back to the drawing board and give us a worthy Bond movie. This one stunk!

When a new 007 movie opens I'm always eager to watch it on the opening weekend – yes, I'm a bond fan of old and love the series. However, with this entry I've waited until only now to view it - unlike other Bond movies, I won't be paying to see this again at the cinema. Sadly, since Daniel Craig came onto the scene I've felt increasingly alienated from the franchise. Undoubtedly Craig is a fine actor, but then again so is Bob Hoskins, but I'd imagine he has never been a serious contender for the part! Really if Craig were to appear in a Bond flick, he'd be best suited to either the Robert Shaw 'Red Grant' character in From Russia With Love, or that of 006 in Goldeneye. To have him playing the great man himself is frankly laughable. Anyway, that aside, there's very little in this film to affiliate it with its predecessors, QOS is simply an action movie and not a very good one at that. If we're to have countless set pieces with very little story in-between, at least make the action watchable. The camera filming the proceedings may as well have been placed in a cement mixer – don't get me wrong, from what I could make out, it looked pretty decent fair – although we'll never know because director, Marc Forster, insists on adopting this increasingly annoying practice of shaky camera work in a vain effort to make the viewer feel part of the action. For the record, this style of film making is woeful and the sooner this trends dies away the better – incidentally, Forster's previous films weren't action driven and boy does this show! So, a Bond movie without any opening gun barrel, no Q; no gadgets, no moneypenny, minimal use of the Bond theme, an actor who doesn't resemble the pre-conceived image the majority of the audience has of 007 and no utterance of the immortal line "Bond, James Bond" – I'm all for a change of direction in the series, the last two Pierce Brosnan efforts were tired and clichéd. Instead of working within the world of 007, the producers seem to have thrown in the towel and opted simply to make action movies with a character called James Bond instead of making actual James Bond movies. This is a fundamental mistake and only goes to affirm the notion that, where once 007 dictated the action movie genre, now it simply follows the rest.

Daniel Craig was a poor choice for the next Bond. James Bond will always be Sean Connery (and vice versa). Subsequent replacements were mere shadows, but nearly all had style, class, and savoir faire. Craig is just a gritty street fighter. I don't recall a single smile or lighter moment in Quantum of Solace. The gadgets are missed (they were all fun). The clever quips are missing. Bond's and the villain's clever dialogue. E.g., Bond is strapped to a table, legs wide apart, with a laser beam coming up toward vital organs. Bond: "Do you expect me to talk?" "No", replies Goldfinger, "I expect you to die, Mr. Bond." The introduction looking through a gun barrel was discarded. It was a very bad idea not to include a sequence from "Casino Royale" with the death of Bond's love, Vesper Lynd. No one in the audience remembered this loss or why he may have been seeking vengeance.

And, finally (a spoiler). The hotel is engulfed in flames. The villain, Vesper Lynd's killer, is hanging onto a balcony with his fingertips. Bond pulls him up (seemingly by the hair), saving him from falling into the fiery pit.

In the next scene, Bond releases the killer in the middle of the desert, saying his people (the villain's) will catch him and do him in, and then tosses him a can as he drives off. What was in the can? Beer? Pepsi Cola? We learn as the movie concludes, the villains body was found, an autopsy performed and his stomach contained motor oil!? Yeah, sure, parched and burning from the sun in the middle of the desert, he will (somehow having found a can opener), drink the motor oil in desperation to relieve his thirst. About as stupid a bit of screen writing as ever seen. If he was going to knock him off, why didn't Bond just drop the villain into the roaring fire with a clever bit of repartee??? No, he just pulls him up, and sets him off in the desert for a slow (but uncertain) roasting, telling him his wicked confreres (the villain's) will find him and punch his ticket.

We go to see every Bond movie (and have seen them all) because they are hugely entertaining, exciting, and enormously amusing. All in all, just plain fun. Quantum of Solace was just grim, and lacking in all of the above. Some of the stunts were good, but stunts alone do not a story make. And finally, what makes a great movie is a great story. This one is a complete miss. We walked out of the movie sorely disappointed.

Oh, yes. Other reviewers have also complained, but I must add that the intentionally choppy camera work (a la the Bourne movies) demands a huge cry of outrage from viewers. What are they thinking??? Is this supposed to add to the excitement of the action? It does NOT. This is just some demented filmwork that film-makers think makes them artistic. It just makes them damn fools, and if we put up with it, add us to the list. Not a single one of the Sean Connery films required extra "juice" to add excitement. The story, the action, the stunts, all were outstanding and plenty exciting. When these nitwits get the idea that a good movie does not need silliness, they might just possibly return to making good movies. QOS should be condemned to the dust heap.

Easily the worst Bond movie in decades, Quantum of Solace offers the worst photography, worst editing, worst continuity and worse musical score. The camera jumps around and tries to create Viewer Headache and any story is impossible to follow if the camera work is jumbled. Add to this 75% of the (sparce) dialog is spoken in a mumble.

Absolutely nothing but stupidity in the initial 15 minutes: smashed cars, broken glass, flames, et cetera. Well, gee whiz, we ain't never seen car crashes in a movie before. Wow! What follows is an almost plot less remaining 75 minutes, almost as stupid as the opening 15.

On the plus side we get a few good glimpses of Port au Prince Haiti, Sienna Italy and La Paz Bolivia; although there's no particular reason why the story hops all over the globe when the problem is firmly planted in Bolivia. The only other good part is Bond's girl pal Camille in her scenes at the waterfront in Haiti. She has several square inches of sunburn peeling off her back. Had I been there I couldn't have resisted peeling the dead skin. Peeling sun-burn is an underrated exotic experience, but Mr. Bond didn't bother with it.

Perhaps the filmmakers had too many lines of cocaine on the table, else they'd have seen the daily rushes and known they'd made one big sorry mess. But cocaine's like that: it makes a person full of themselves.

So i'm lucky enough living in a country where the film is being viewed for the first time to the public. I've had mixed expectations on this one because i knew there were going to be á la Bourne Identity. But i also knew that Daniel Craig would deliver a pretty good performance. And the main villain played by Mathiue Amalric, who actually wasn't as good as i'd thought...but his performance wasn't a disappointment.

The movie begins with one of the worst bond intros i've ever seen; a car scene where you practically see nothing because of the super-shaky-way of filming it...

The main theme, peformed by Alicia Keys; which was a decent song, better than i'd expected.Although it ends with a ridiculous oh-oh-uh-oh-oh...

One thing that i really noticed in this movie; is how my feelings for Daniel Craig as Bond really changed. During a conversation between him and M i realized...this man isn't Bond. I've never thought of it before but when i saw him standing there with his heavy face i just couldn't help myself comparing him to preview bond actors...Pierce and Sean are still the only right Bond actors for me.

For those who expects heavy camera action...well you won't be disappointed, at some points i couldn't actually see what was going on. And i'm used (unfortunately) to films that are shot that way...

I'd like to point out that there's a scene at the opera which i want you to keep an extra eye on. This scene was one of the greatest i've ever seen in a Bond movie before...so keep that in mind.

Quantum Of the Solace isn't a disappointment and there's no reason for you to have second thoughts on paying for a ticket...it's a real popcorn film.

'Quantum of Solace' heralds the return of Daniel Craig's James Bond.It starts straight after 'Casino Royale'-- hungry for revenge Bond seeks Vesper's killer.I had read some poor reviews of this film before attending.In my humble opinion this film is pure 'new' Bond!From the opening car chase to its finale the break-neck pace does not let up.It has been shot and edited in a thrilling and groundbreaking way bringing to mind the successful earlier films(i.e Peter Hunt and Terence Young influence).For me this film is a much more exciting film than its predecessor because the action images are very specific -- the fight scenes, chases etc made want to applaud Marc Forster, his editors and his second unit.Daniel Craig as James Bond is quite simply fantastic -- vengeance is not easy to convey interestingly and can often be one note.He is subtle, tender,funny and deadly throughout.The Broccoli family better hold on to him!All the supporting cast are superb too with Rory Kinnear and Judi Dench bringing a precision to their work which gives the film another layer.David Arnold's score is powerful.The film itself a quality product and one of the best in the series with some surprising moments.Brilliant!

Like others who loved Casino Royale, I had high hopes for this one. The CR parkour sequence was stunning, the Origin story of Bond's first 00 mission fitted the genre wonderfully, the glib comment "Quite..." on his 2nd kill, and an explanation/origin for the gun-barrel sequence.

But this isn't a review of CR, sadly. I wanted to like QoS, but the shaky-cam stuff made me seasick. The point of shaky was, I thought, to fake a bunch of action because you haven't the budget for the stunt men to do it properly, like the swan dive off the dam at the start of Goldeneye.

I saw QoS from the back row of the cinema, and it wasn't far enough back. If ever a movie was made for watching on the back of an airplane seat, this is it.

Craig does a good 007, I think. Dench does a good M. Some of the plot was interesting, the idea that while the US could be fooled into running with the bad guys, the Brits (M in particular) wanted at least a second opinion, is a departure from the Bond franchise in which the CIA is always there with the cavalry when it's needed.

I really did want to like this movie, and I hope Craig returns as 007 with a different director and editor. And a budget big enough to include a steadicam and someone who knows how to use it.

I only caught up with this film on DVD, and was so glad not to have forked out precious money on a cinema seat to have seen this farrago of total nonsense. Apart from the film being absurd and preposterous all the way through, actually, its worst sin in my eyes was that it was all a total bore.

Reflecting more, and picking up a few points from other critical comments on IMDb, it struck me that all of the film-makers concerned - scriptwriters, producers, directors, and even some of the actors - must have a real contempt for the intelligence of the cinema-going film-watching public. Not once in the film was there any attempt to present the viewer with a coherent story line. When the audience was grudgingly granted a scene containing no more than a dozen lines of dialogue which barely hinted at that particular stage of the clearly non-existent plot, the viewer was then pummelled in the head with lots of irrelevant and absurd "action" set pieces, which actually had one rolling in the aisles at home with uncontrollable laughter at the utter stupidity of each of those exercises.

And then, just before the film makers thought that the audience might "just" then be wanting to know what the hell was going on with some "story" etc, they were whisked off to yet another exotic location for Daniel Craig to do his "okay, so it's Thursday, so I must be in Haiti", strutting around as his particular form of "acting"; or no, "it's Friday so we must be in Bolivia", behaving all the time in such a self-important manner as though every misbegotten viewer of this nonsense should somehow be admiring him! To be fair, Daniel Craig was good and threatening in his role as the would-be assassin priest in "Elizabeth".

That's another thing which really got me about this film. All the actors concerned seemed to take themselves far too seriously and self-importantly - cocky is the word, - just because they were in a "Bond" film. Pretentious, the lot of them! Seriously, this so-called "Bond" film should be laid to rest with the whole of the Bond film franchise so that we see no more of these useless films, under the heading, "R.I.P".

After the fantastic experience of watching Casino Royale, I expected something on the same level. I expect way too much from Bond I suppose. Quantum of Solace is a strange experience that would jar the senses of any audience member, even non-Bond fans.

Well let's look at the story that I thought had great potential. It picks up directly where Casino Royale left off, with Bond investigating an agent of an organization known as Quantum, which I think is the modern equivalent to SPECTER. This is some guy named Dominic Greene who tries to monopolize a desert country's water before trying to stage a coup-de-tat in said countries with hoarded water. But that's not the main story, its about M whining about Bond being plagued by revenge for the death of Vesper (SPOILER!!) Here's the first problem with the movie for me, the plot suffers from a complete lack of focus (and I'm not talking about the editing or camera-work either, I'll get to that later) Like I said, the story had great potential, but it is underdeveloped and the characterizations often times do not make any sense. Heck sometimes the logic of everything that plays out makes no sense at all. The aspect involving the water isn't all that interesting, and surprisingly, the revenge aspect isn't great either. Now, some people say that about Licence to Kill as well, but there you had a solid story and decent characterizations, but when they are simplified or not clear, it doesn't work as well.

The acting is actually the biggest saving grace of this movie, well for the most part. Craig still packs in a solid performance as Bond, giving a far more darker turn than in Casino Royale, but he still manages to incorporate the dry humor that worked very well in the last movie. Olga Kurylenko is amazing as Camille, and even the first Bond girl that Bond doesn't go to bed with all the way through the movie. The others are fine, but with the bad writing for the most part, they get lost and hopelessly confused so they seem odd and stupid.

Then there's the action and filming. Holy god this is the most poorly shot movie I have ever seen in my life. The camera is shaking to the point of seasickness, like Man of Steel, but is doesn't benefit from poor editing. A lot of the sots in this movie last either a half a second or a half a frame before the scene is over. Then there are random shots and edits that make zero sense and provides the reason why I say this is an unbearable experience for the eyes and ears. Actually, we get a very good car chase at the beginning of the film and a cool aerial battle between a jet and an old Douglas DC-3, that's always great to watch. But other than that there are few and far between great action sequences.

I've harped on this movie enough so I won't try to do anything more to it. But if I had to, I would recommend this one for one single viewing only. Is is the worst executed Bond film? Yes, yes it is. But does is have good things? On an occasion. Watch it once, but have vomit bags ready.

Now onto the next greatest return to Bond-form, and my favorite Bond film, Skyfall.

This review contains spoilers.

Quantum of Solace is an action spy moyle that premiered in 2008. The movie is directed by Marc Foster and is based on James Bond by Ian Fleming. The movie's story is written by Paul Haggis, Neal Purvis, and Robert Wade. The movie has Daniel Craig reprise the role of James Bond and stars Olga Kurylenko. The movie continues where Casino Royale left off and has James Bond trying to thwart a plot to stop the Quantum organization.

Quantum of Solace is an incredibly muddled movie. There are not many redeeming qualities about this movie. The movie meanders from plot point and can not keep a focused story. The movie starts off well with James Bond escaping with Mr White. The car chase is riveting to watch but then the plot becomes horribly convoluted. Plot points simply come and go but does not coalesce into a thorough line of thought.

Events and characters feel contrived. The action scenes are not good. The scenes frequently utilize quick cuts that do not help immerse the audience. These quick cuts only served to take me out of the experience. Outside of the opening chase scene, I am hard pressed to remember any interesting action scenes. Everything felt similar and not distinct.

Both Daniel Craig, and Olga Kurylenko, do not do a phenomenal job in the more. The performance is bland and it feels like the script is incredibly limiting on the lead actors. There is simply not much they do both drama and stunt wise.

Overall, Quantum of Solace is a mess. This movie has little redeeming qualities making it not recommended by me.

Grade: D

Picking up where Casino Royale left off Bond is on the trail of the organization behind Le Chiffre (villain in Casino) as well as seeking to get revenge for the death of Vesper Lynde. The main bad guy is Dominic Greene of the Green Corporation with ties to something larger. Greene is buying up land all over the world for some unknown reason. Everyone thinks oil but there is something else afoot.

Extremely well made, with stunning set pieces this is a movie that starts and goes from almost the instant the film begins. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. Good, in that it keeps you watching to see what is going to happen next. Bad in that it conceals plot that is decidedly less then detailed (as are some of the characters). There is no sense of a bigger picture, its just Bond charging on. Its not bad, but its not great either. The film, in its way feels like a side story or middle part to something larger since the main plot only serves to let us know that some large menace is in the wings.

I do like the film, but I'm really torn between loving the action (even if it feels Bourne-ish) and feeling blah about the plot. Still reservations aside its worth a popcorn and a soda, so if you get the chance do see it.

somewhere around 7 out of 10.

If I wasn't so bored, I might have felt violated by this awful suckfest.

Seriously...who greenlights a script this bad? I'll give you a quick excerpt of the "plot": Bond gets to the hotel and kills the geologist, gets the briefcase and walks out just in time for the car to pull up. He gets in and the girl pulls a gun on him. He gets out just in time to hop on the motorcycle. Follows the car to the dock just in time to overhear the conversation and see the boat take off just in time. Follows on motorcycle and drives off the ramp of a boat that was lined up just in time for him to land in a powerboat. Fights off baddies and in the process, the girl gets KO'ed just in time for Bond to reach land and drop her off so he can get to the airport just in time to see the villains take off, etc.

Notice the excessive usage of the phrase "just in time".

There's even a spot where Bond has left a party and is driving in the middle of the desert where he just so happens to come across a man who just so happens to sell Bond his plane. Bond flies the plane for less than 5 minutes and just so happens to get shot out of the air. Bond and the girl (did they even say her name more than once?) open the parachute just in time - oops, sorry. About a minute too late. Sorry, but if you open a parachute 12 feet from the ground, you're dead. I don't care if you're James Bond. You're dead. So anyway, they just so happen to land directly above a sinkhole which just so happens to have the most easily accessible exit in the history of any place where any character was ever trapped in film history, and then just so happen to end up in a spot where they can easily recognize the villain's plan (which was over AN HOUR into the film - didn't know the purpose of any of the action up to that point, which made it tedious and boring), etc, etc.

Notice the excessive usage of the phrase "just so happens".

There is absolutely no plot to this film whatsoever. There are no characters. There is no dialogue. There are no relationships. There is no originality at all. None. Everything about this film is one - yes, ONE dimensional. Not two, and definitely not three. Just one.

This is action porn...but even the action sucks.

It opens with a car chase where one dark vehicle is shooting at another dark vehicle, so you can't tell what the hell is going on, who is in which car, who is shooting at Bond and why they are shooting at him. It makes no sense to a viewer. Neither does any of the action that follows. Bond leaves bodies in his wake, never even encountering a real challenge. Coincidences move him from place to place and stuff blows up and people shoot guns in the process. That is this movie.

Bond doesn't struggle at all. The villain's henchman is supposed to be the brawn to the villain's brain. Look at Odd Job and Goldfinger. Here, we have this guy with a flo-be bowl cut who gets tripped by a girl in a cocktail dress. And the main baddie himself looks like a young Roman Polanski...and the members of his super-secret organization that nobody knows anything about just so happen to conveniently sport little Q lapels, making them so easy to identify. Smart.

Even action porn needs to be exciting. There have to be reversals. Watch the truck chase at the end of The Road Warrior and you'll see more reversals in that one 10 minute scene than this entire movie. That is why that scene is great and this movie sucks. Both have cars driving fast and people shooting one another and things blowing up. Hint: THAT IS NOT WHY PEOPLE WATCH MOVIES! People watch movies for an experience. We want to see reversals in action, character relationships develop and change, a plot that actually makes sense. We want to see characters develop beyond a thuggish menace before they go and wreak havoc. We want to see this person that we now care about actually struggle and fight for victory. We want to be able to follow what is going on, in terms of story and visuals. You can't do that if the camera is swaying violently and cutting every 3/8ths of a second and the main plot isn't revealed until a majority of the movie is over.

This is perhaps the worst movie I have seen in a decade. An absolutely epic failure on every front, including the future of film-making, which appears to be heading toward a depression of it's own if a film like this, completely void of quality, gets made.

The cinematic apocalypse has begun.

PS: Who the f--k edited this movie?! I want to track this person down and murder them with my bare hands in their own home in front of his or her children. My 5 year-old dog could have done a better job. Is there a bet going on with you and Paul Greengrass as to who will be the first to make a film that will literally cause people's heads to explode from an overload of underprocessed information...or do you just suck that bad? Quit your job immediately and find something that you're actually good at.

I watched this new Bond with interest while I was in the theater (mostly because of Craig and Dench) but the longer I'm out, the more I hate it. This was not a Bond movie. Why spend over 40 years building a franchise and then knock it's feet out from under it. There is too much to comment on in full paragraphs so here's the list:

Bond is not Wolverine or Terminator. The things that happened to Bond in this movie would kill any man...let's keep it real.

Along those lines: No man can stay awake for that long and not start hallucinating and have walking sleep moments (which could have been interesting)

NO MORE SHAKY CAM! Bond fight scenes should be thrilling, not a blur of skin, metal and shattering glass. Why spend all that money setting up shots and then not let the audience see it?

Bond would not dump a fellow agent/friend in a dumpster. At least he could have made a funeral pyre out of it.

Why oh why do we have soooo many bad guys/enemies/sub-plots? Bolivian dictators, French mercenaries, Quantum group(Inc.)head honchos, knife wielding geologists?, turn-coat CIA agents, turn-coat British agents, bad boyfriends?, bad fathers (that still have to be avenged???), Alpha Romero driving bad guys, fighter plane pilots, etc. etc.

Why would the agency send a secretary to stop one of their wildest agents from leaving town? And how did that same secretary have time to write a "run" note when she was so busy dying?

Why was this mousy French guy any match for Bond? He was wearing freaking loafers!

Why would Bond just sit there in a burning room contemplating suicide when he just ran and jumped through flames to get there?

Why can't Bolivians trace the water back and take out the dam with sledgehammers?

Couldn't the plot had a little more dastardly...like the mercenary was going to poison the world's drinking water so his supply would become liquid gold? Not just dry up a region in Bolivia so you can charge "twice as much" as the dictator was paying before???

Oh, well.

Let's get back to the old Bond movies. I actually don't mind Craig as Bond but these bad plots and blurry direction are ruining my favorite movie treat.

If you bump into a stranger who says, "I've never seen a Bond film, but I hear such good things about the Daniel Craig reboot that I've decided to make Quantum Of Solace my first Bond movie," then talk them out of it, as a matter of urgency. This is not because QoS is a bad film, it's because it has the wrong title.

Don't get me wrong, I like the title Quantum Of Solace. It's a Fleming original, it's miles better than the Die Today, Never Tomorrow titles of the Brosnan era, Quantum is a decent name for the shadowy organisation which now fills SPECTRE's shoes, and the three words very aptly refer to the small comfort which Bond derives from the events of this film.

But it's still the wrong title. The film should have been called Casino Royale Part 2.

It's widely known that QoS picks up within a few moments of Bond shooting Mr White at the end of Casino Royale, and I think that's absolutely fine. But this is the first Bond which doesn't stand alone. My hypothetical stranger is going to be saying "Hang on - who's Vesper? Perhaps they'll explain later on who she is." And later on, that same stranger will be saying, "Who is this Mathis bloke? Why is he angry at Bond for having him tortured? Perhaps they'll explain later on." But there is never an explanation. For that part of the audience which has seen Casino Royale - and let's be fair, that's going to be a sizeable percentage - this poses no problem. But for those who come to this movie cold, there will be a lot of questions which will remain unanswered.

There is more action here than there was in Casino Royale, and I had a problem with a lot of it. Moviewatchers don't always realise that action sequences need a strong sense of geography. If A is running to intercept B at an angle of 50 degrees then, if A finally arrives at a different angle, or from the other side, the audience is disoriented (without always understanding why). The lessons of the Bourne franchise have clearly been taken on board (there is one sequence which is a virtual rerun of the Tangier chase in the third Bourne film), but the excessive closeup work and hyperkinetic, frenetic editing and choreography mean that it is often difficult to keep track of who is doing what to whom and where. Contrast the wonderfully laid out free running sequence from Casino Royale.

The story steers away from the small scale intimacy of Casino Royale back towards worldwide power games: thankfully, we are still a million miles away from kidnapping space capsules, satellite dishes disguised as lakes, invisible cars etc.

The bit players are all fine. Olga Kurylenko, in particular, looks good and acquits herself well.

Craig puts in another sterling performance as Bond. Having let his guard down in Casino Royale, Bond is now closely protecting the open wound left by Vesper's betrayal. QoS shows how he deals with this and, perhaps, how he begins to heal. Again, Craig brings more depth to Bond than any actor before him.

By far the best thing in this film is Judi Dench's M. Given more to do than in any previous film, M shows how she got to the position she holds. Politically acute, on top of her job even when things are going badly wrong, and always giving deep thought to exactly where Bond stands, Miss Dench's M delivers, both as head of MI6 and as a human being.

The ending - the entire closing sequence - is simply great, with an element of class I never thought I would see in a Bond film.

This is a worthy successor to Casino Royale - not quite as good, but still very good - and I enjoyed it greatly.

Edit following second viewing:

QoS rewards rewatching - it doesn't drag anywhere. I have no reason to change what I said above, but I'll add a few comments.

One concerns the location captions (Siena, London, Port au Prince Haiti etc.). These are introduced with individual fonts which are designed to be appropriate to the specific location, and are often seemingly integrated into the establishing location shot (ie. "London" appears to be a nameplate set into a road). I can understand the artistic/design concept behind this, and it's definitely a different way of approaching it, but I found it really distracting. Personally, I like a constant simple font occupying the same place on the screen, so that you realise what you're seeing each time.

Bond makes quips, but they're not funny and they're not meant to be. I liked them a lot.

I was irritated by the pageant in Siena. Its only purpose was to introduce a further obstacle in the chase sequence, and the constant intercutting between the chase in the sewers and the pageant above only served to further obscure a sequence which was already difficult to follow.

The interplay between Bond and Mathis is excellent.

I couldn't believe that the CIA section chief could rise to section chief and still be such a complete ar$e.

I was also puzzled about the hotel in the climactic sequence. Who on earth would build an enormous, state-of-the-art, hotel in the middle of the Bolivian desert? A hotel, incidentally, which plays host to meetings of dictators, corrupt police chiefs, purveyors of international chicanery, and their respective entourages - but which has no other clientèle whatsoever? And is serviced by a staff comprising precisely one chambermaid? And how come a structure which appears to be constructed entirely out of concrete burns like cardboard doused in gasoline?

But, hey, it's a Bond film - blowing stuff up is part of the genre! Stop being so picky!

New Bond is so horrible you will go for the evil geniuses to kill him. Unfortunately here there are no evil engineer geniuses, only rich snobs buying the world. Why drop Connerys "no matter what happens I will always hit on every girl in the room" and "check out my gadgetry" playboy appeal and change it with the new Batman "no charisma, no soul, only vengeance"? Who are the creators kidding? He is a frigid workaholic obsessed on revenge. I don't even remember what was so special about the dead girl anyway. Other Bonds would have just found a new girl like they always do, but not this moron.

Like the new Batman, the first movie was a shocker, the second has failed to shock and we saw junk.

The fact that in the first 10 minutes you get 2 chase scenes between an introduction song is enough to tell you this movie is... em… technically here any bad word will do. The entire move is like Bond is the ONLY agent MI6 has.

Obviously doomed police officers. Overboard computers with big flashy screens, incapable of passing firewalls. Rich cars on poor streets. Stupidest tailing I ever saw. Reckless boat riding and much, much more. All this is mixed with 5 minute characters, leaving you asking "Who are these people?" All who I can recognize are Bond, the girl, Green (environmentalist? oh come on!) and M. And all Bond does is run, ride and fight.

The worst is that scenes change every 3-4 seconds (sometimes from 2 to 10 seconds). Just count, you will never get to 20. This is confusing because we have to figure out where we are and what is happening. Confusing and gives a headache. Because of this I never could concentrate on the dialogs and info. The movie is full of pointless scenes and talking, without witch things might have smoothed out.

Some things are just out of place. The girl covered in oil is a cheap rip-off from Goldfinger. Unoriginal, same position, same shoot angle. Felix is completely a background character. I failed to notice him in the first movie at all. And why do modern villains have modern abstract art and monotone rooms with much free space? Can't afford wallpaper, pot plants and a bookshelf with books or DVDs? You can't work, recline or even live in such environment.

You can't let kids watch this violence and dating to this is like harassment. I miss SPECTRE. Bond and Batman had a nice century, but with these remakes they are as good as dead.

Casino Royale hinted at the resurgence of the Bond character, through emotional plot points & character development, diminishing the use of gimmicks, gadgets & high jinks and the use of more realism in action sequences (a.k.a. the Bourne effect). I thoroughly enjoyed Casino Royale. If the ridiculous title of this movie hasn't already given away its caliber, I will. It STINKS. Worst Bond movie ever! This movie makes me long for the Roger Moore days, when at least you could laugh at the ridiculousness. I would rather watch the non-Broccoli & aged Bond of Never Say Never Again than QoS. QoS is thin in every conceivable category except boredom, where there is plenty to go around.

The movie picks up about 3 minutes after the end of Casino Royale and puts us right in the middle of a Bond getaway through the serpentine roads of the Italian countryside. The usual stuff occurs; cars crash into one another, cars get shot, cars fall off cliffs, etc. We are then presented with a major plot point: there is a secret organization that's controlling everything and has infiltrated even MI6 and CIA.

We don't really explore that dangerous avenue much, as the movie is more interested in Bond's revenge goals (who is responsible for Vespa's death), Camille's revenge goals (paying back her father's killer), Greene's plot to create a drought in Bolivia for a nefarious scheme (why Bolivia??) and the CIA/MI6 double dealings with sketchy individuals/groups. Eggs are broken, omelets are made.

Although this movie is suppose to be Bond's closure in regards to Vespa, it doesn't actually answer much in the way of that back story and can be easily skipped. We need a whole movie to tell us that Vespa was duped by her N. African lover? It was kind of obvious from Casino Royale. There is little plot that actually makes sense as things become tediously confusing. A plot tool I like to call "double-dealing the double-deal" scenario.

Who needs plot when you have action, right? That is usually the case unless every scene reminds you of another movie (Bourne trilogy) or when you introduce ridiculous situations: i.e. a dogfight between a WW2 cargo & fighter plane or perhaps getting knocked out by a dingy. Bond doesn't use any gadgets, except for a phone and at one point he even takes a ride in a smart car. The only cool car Bond drives is a wreck from the opening scene. Bond's nemesis, Greene, is a petty middle-man for the secret organization (yet to be named), who's primary role in this movie is as that organization's herald. There is nothing remotely interesting or uncanny about him. He is not even clever/smart, but is just sleazy (an atypical role for a Bond nemesis).

Without the "Bond" moniker this is nothing more than an average revenge-based action movie. The stink of the writer's strike is all over this movie as it feels rushed from the plot, to the action & even the CG effects (CG parachute jump is atrocious). I bet the writers thought their Goldfinger homage with the "black gold" covering the Bond girl instead of real gold was clever. It all seems borrowed and severely unoriginal. A true waste of 100 minutes for those that can sleep, but a miracle cure for the insomniacs of the world. If you need your fix of Daniel Greg, then go back to Casino Royale (Layer Cake is even better) or stay tuned for the next movie : "The Arc-Second of Truth".

-Celluloid Rehab

I am sorry but I am going to be offensive and provocative towards a cornerstone of British culture. I only gave time to this opus because Mathieu Amalric was playing in it and because I convinced myself that as someone living in UK I should see it. But I didn't like Amalric in it, and it didn't change my idea that it's just some spectacular scenes wrapped in the same old story. Always the same structure, the only difference being that the bad guy is no longer a communist but some king of venture capitalist. It doesn't bring me anything more than 24, except that with 24, there is at least some thrill, enhanced by the series format. So I still think James Bond is overrated.

From the ridiculous opening sequence - a chase (was it cars up in the mountains?) that is jump cut every 50 milliseconds so that you cannot follow or appreciate anything to the dreadfully arch assassination sequence at the end('M' even appears inside Russia to co-ordinate matters!), this Bond movie trails along on the coat tails of the so-called new paradigm of spy/thrillers - the Bourne trilogy. Just as they were alright, so 'Quantum' is alright. But no more. Following boringly in the trail of 'The Dark Knight' the hero is dark and moody, on the edge, which means you get a dreadfully one paced, one sour look performance from Daniel Craig, only relieved by one good gag about Dame Judi! The film requires a memory of Casino Royale to fully follow, and a longing for Goldfinger when the golden girl scene is repeated, although presumably not by the actress playing Strawberry Fields, a gag I only got from the cast list! The film is one long chase/action video game, with subpar villains and a subplot with an Oedipus complex - just let 'M' be a boss, please. This is not James Bond for the noughties - it is a second rate derivative credit swap. Next time make it without the second unit crew!!!

A very disappointing film. Do you know why? As these films go on, the plot becomes extremely thin and all we get is high action. I know that the producers want to please the teens out there, but this is becoming ridiculous.

Dominick Green is supposed to be interested in global warming and oil. In reality, he wants to create a drought. What does he want to do, control Poland Spring? This is never fully explained. Instead we get exciting chase scenes on roof tops, boat chases and airplane sequences. Enough is enough already.

Imagine, James Bond becomes suspect here and at one point Judy Dench, as M, has him suspended. It's long overdue for Ms.Dench to withdraw from this role. Even Lois Maxwell knew when to get out. As for Daniel Craig, the man has a built in anger. He totally lacks the sex appeal of a Roger Moore or Sean Connery. Craig would do in army training films as a commander.

I just returned from the theater and have to admit this is the worst Bond movie in the series.

I have seen every first run James Bond movie on the Big Screen (my aunt and uncle took me to a drive-in in the early 1960s to see "Dr. No"). So, I did not want to break my silver screen viewing streak.

That said, I was really disappointed in this outing. To be honest, I do not think Daniel Craig is all that great as James Bond. His portrayal of 007 comes across as an unlikable character: cold, with no sense of humor. Bond movies of old mixed wit with drama which made them enjoyable to watch (though the Roger Moore-era was a bit over the top). For me, Craig would seem better cast as the person James Bond is trying to defeat rather than the movie's hero.

Then, there are no gadgets in this effort. None. I thought I would never live to see a Bond flick without at least one gadget. Until now, that was one of the distinctive signatures of a James Bond movie.

Then there was QoS's plot. Back in the day Bond was all about thwarting villains and saving the entire world from destruction. Here, all he did was to make sure some South American Third World village did not have to buy Crystal Geyser bottled water.

I gave this outing a 1 out of 10 because the movie was short. God help us all of the Powers That Be had drug this movie out to a Casino Royal time frame.

Will I go to Bond 23? Yes. But not because I want to see what Craig's 007 will do next. Rather, I do not want to end my personal consecutive streak.

Word of mouth is not much in favor of this being one of the best Bond pictures. I rather enjoyed the lesser spotlight on gadgets and parade of vixens. Of course I thought the first minute of the movie might be a car ad. The obligatory car chase opens this 007 assignment and it is interesting enough. James Bond(Daniel Graig)is asked to put his emotions on hold; but still manages to pursue the identity of the man responsible for his loved one's betrayal and death as well as foil a sinister business man's control of a nation's major asset...not oil, but water resource.

The story more than a bit messy, but enough action to keep most everyone happy. Agent 007 gets knocked around, cut and bruised...but as usual his endurance training serves him well. M(Judi Dench)casts doubt on her prized agent that stays on mission in spite of declassification traipsing to Italy, Austria and South America.

Olga Kurylenko and Gemma Arterton serve as Bond eye candy and Mathieu Amalric is the cocky and ruthless villain that you want a piece of if Bond leaves any. Also in the cast: Jeffrey Wright, Jesper Christensen, Joaquin Cosio and Giancarlo Giannini. Fans wait long enough to get their next Bond fix and have a right to be let down...if that's the case, life goes on. However the theme song for QUANTUM OF SOLACE has to rank among the worst ever.